Boeing Starliner launch delays

Oldfart1939 · 2021-08-03 12:14:05

In a press release earlier today, it was announced that the Starliner has suffered an another hardware/software issue regarding valve positions in the propulsion system.

Link:https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-oft2-nasa-launch-delayed

SpaceNut · 2021-08-03 19:10:27

originally reports for a delay was due to the ISS getting an AG spin from the docking Russian module but Boeing needs success rather than failure if it does not want to loose out....

Oldfart1939 · 2021-08-04 11:09:39

An update on the Starliner launch delays:

"Delayed indefinitely."

This doesn't sound good: https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner- … definitely

Oldfart1939 · 2021-08-08 15:14:49

Article titled "Starliner Investigation Continues."

https://spacenews.com/starliner-investi … continues/

kbd512 · 2021-08-08 17:12:45

Oldfart1939,

I'm guessing that the referenced thunderstorm did some damage to the thrusters from water ingress. It may be time to start thinking about how to make spacecraft more durable, such that clean room assembly is not required and exposure to the elements is not detrimental to the proper function of critical systems. I noticed that SpaceX's Starship is assembled in tents, not clean rooms, and that the vehicles are left exposed to the elements, as they would be during normal operations, and that doesn't appear to drastically affect their ability to fly. Obviously launching during storms is not a good idea and if the storm produces very high wind speeds, then the potential for damage exists, but a comprehensive vehicle durability approach should be exercised by the designers. This is not the 1960s and this is not Boeing's first rodeo. We should know by now how to design durable vehicles using aerospace coatings that inhibit corrosion or materials that resist corrosion and fatigue. The same applies to electronics, rocket engines, and propellant tanks. Imagine how the utility of a car would be affected if a single storm after it rolled off the production line affected the engine throttle body's ability to open / shut, or a battery that corroded so badly that it couldn't flow sufficient current. If that's unacceptable for a car, then it's even less acceptable for a vastly more expensive high performance vehicle that cost the tax payers billions of dollars to develop.

Oldfart1939 · 2021-08-12 10:06:56

According to the linked article, the ingress of water into the system has been ruled highly unlikely.

This is another unforgivable flaw in the Starliner system.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/08/10/b … eshooting/

GW Johnson · 2021-08-12 12:15:04

I think they used the cheap, low-quality valves. I saw where Boeing technicians finally got open 7 of the 13 valves that were inappropriately closed. That kind of ignoring-quality-control is consistent with Boeing's new corporate management based in Chicago, far from any of the engineering operations, so that a chief engineer no longer can talk easily to a head honcho.

Said corporate management recently bragged in public about changing Boeing from a focus on engineering excellence to a focus on shareholder value. That change has brought you the 737MAX unairworthiness debacle, the 777X unairworthiness debacle, the 787 assembly troubles that threaten airworthiness, and now Starliner.

So why should anybody be surprised that Starliner's software and propellant valves have proved to be no good after attempted flights and not before? They got paid whether they did good or bad. And the longer they drag this out, the more they get paid. That's shareholder value for you!

GW

SpaceNut · 2021-08-12 19:50:38

Space x saw its own quality control issues with valves as well but was able to resolve it.

Oldfart1939 · 2021-08-13 15:41:31

It is now evident that NTO is the culprit, and moisture corroded the valves in a stuck position by the nitric acid formed.

https://spacenews.com/starliner-test-fl … ong-delay/

Starliner is now in the process of being de-stacked and the spacecraft taken back to the factory for additional work.

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2021-08-13 15:42:53)

Oldfart1939 · 2021-08-14 09:52:44

This is a question directed to GW. You commented on the valves utilized being the "cheap ones." As a chemist with some knowledge of engineering materials and processes, I'm wondering what they DID use? It seems that the ball portion of the valve was metallic. I would think that a type 316 SS was what they probably used, and Inconel would have been better although more expensive (in a relative sense) to SS. Even better in my mind would have been a ceramic coated Inconel valve which would have been resistant to damn near anything that could derive from NTO and a trace of moisture.

I'm gonna quote Forrest Gump again: "Stupid is as stupid does." I hope that Boeing is happy with their accountants making engineering decisions to save a few pennies. I, as a taxpayer, have had enough.

SpaceNut · 2021-08-14 10:34:05

Had it not detected the condition there would have been a crew loss if it had been launched with a crew so we were lucky that it was going to be just a cargo mission if successfully launched.

Had it been a submarine you would be dead if crewed and definitely a loss of equipment....

all are very expensive for space flight

Boeing astronaut capsule grounded for months by valve issue AANiqDs.img?h=533&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

Mars_B4_Moon · 2021-08-15 06:37:21

Boeing's Starliner launch, a critical test flight for NASA, delayed indefinitely as capsule heads back to factory
https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner- … ory-return

GW Johnson · 2021-08-15 11:29:21

OF:

I don't know specifically what Boeing used in Starliner. All I know is that it failed up-front, instead of being able to deliver propellant. I do know the propellants were NTO and one of the hydrazines, likely Aerozine-50, given Boeing's history with ULA.

I do know that NTO-hydrazine propellants have a 60-year history in spaceflight. That was the propellant combo used in the Titan series of ICBM's, and it had to work after years of sitting in silos. It was also the propellant combo used for attitude thrusters on Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle, and all the Russian vehicles too.

There is no excuse for screwing up the selection of propellant valves for that propellant combo. Not after 6 decades of success around the world. No excuse at all. But Boeing did screw that up on Starliner, that much is pathetically obvious.

Boeing got paid almost twice as much as Spacex to develop a manned capsule taxi to the ISS. They have taken about twice as long, and yet still cannot successfully fly. They have gotten paid, whether they succeed or not, which is a feature of government R&D contracting. It looks to me like the success bonus was too low, and the base effort pay was too high.

When you compound that with the corporate focus shift from "engineering excellence" to "shareholder value", you get what you have seen. I've seen this before, from the inside. Ask me sometime why Hercules (now defunct) once had to take a billion-dollar writeoff in one year, because they incompetently blew up a large USAF solid motor test stand.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2021-08-15 11:31:28)

GW Johnson · 2021-08-16 08:08:46

It would appear that our speculations were largely correct. The only unknown seems to be just how the moisture got in there to make nitric acid from NTO. The valves were stainless with Teflon, which is probably an incorrect choice. (I don’t know myself what the “right” choice is.) Here is what today’s AIAA “Daily Launch” has to say about it:

Starliner Launch Delayed Again, Capsule Recalled To Factory

The New York Times (8/13) reported that The Boeing Company announced Friday that the Starliner capsule would be recalled to Boeing’s factory at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The scheduled flight will be delayed “for at least two months, and possibly into next year.” NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Kathy Lueders said, “This is obviously a disappointing day. But I want to emphasize that this is another example of why these demo missions are so very important to us.”

The Wall Street Journal (8/13, Subscription Publication) reported that Boeing executive and Starliner manager John Vollmer said that moisture in the spacecraft’s propulsion system corroded 13 valves and prevented them from opening.

Reuters (8/13) reported that NASA and Boeing officials “did not give a firm date for a launch on the call, but confirmed it would not take place before mid-October and said it could slip into 2022.”

The AP (8/13) reported that Boeing engineers do not believe rain from the thunderstorm caused the valves to stick, and are “trying to determine how and when the moisture got there; it could have been during assembly or much later.”

The Washington Post (8/13) reported that Boeing and NASA “are exploring whether the cause of the problem was moisture from Florida’s humid air interacting with a chemical that helps the rocket fuel burn. The resulting mixture damaged the valves and kept them from opening, officials theorize.”

Back to me: a part of the long delay is scheduling constraints and conflicts. A part of it is unstated: what do they replace the corrosion-vulnerable valves with? It would probably help to ask some of the other contractors what they have used over the last 6 decades with NTO. There's not many live folks who know, but it ought to be on the old drawings that should be still on file. Especially at NASA (the shuttle OMS used these same propellants).

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2021-08-16 08:12:42)

Oldfart1939 · 2021-08-16 10:57:22

Here we are--talking about construction and materials flaws in Starliner. An even bigger problem await with the first flight of SLS, which we are told is "coming soon." It makes me wonder about all the attitude control thrusters on that bigger bird, and whether they succumbed to using the "cheaper valves?" Hopefully the "cost plus contract" made the more expensive valves attractive to the accountants?

RobertDyck · 2021-08-16 11:56:31

Obsessing over moisture instead of part choice is a stupid cop-out. These rockets launch from the Florida coast. There's a lot of moisture from the ocean. Designing a ship that fails due to humidity?

Gemini 8 failed due to a stuck thruster. They had to use the Reentry Control System to stop the tumble. They never discovered the source of the problem. The stuck thruster was OAMS thruster 8. That's the "service module" for Gemini, it didn't return. The mostly likely suspect was an electrical problem. But expect a struck thruster is something that was solved in 1966. It's disappointing to see it again. At least they discovered this before launch.

I lived in Miami for 10 months in 1999/2000. I could describe torrential rains that happen there.

GW Johnson · 2021-08-16 13:58:15

Hi OF39 & Robert:

This isn't the same Boeing that built the B-17, the B-52, and some of the Saturn stages. Or the 727, the 707, the 747, or the earlier models of the 737. That Boeing is dead and gone.

It bought up most of its competition, and what it didn't buy, its sole remaining competitor Lockheed mostly bought up. Between them, one or the other of them owns most of all the subcontractors that there are.

Add to that, the change during the last decade: corporate management at Boeing moved to Chicago, far from any of the engineering/production locations. The chief engineers no longer have an effective ear with management. And that management boasted in the last couple of years how they turned the focus away from "technical excellence" to "shareholder value", which is code for looking at absolutely nothing but the money.

As if that's not enough, the years have passed, and the old hands that had experience doing incredible things have all either died, retired, or been fired so that newbies could be hired at half the pay. In a management environment like that, the unwritten knowledge of the older hands does NOT get passed-on to the newbies one-on-one on-the-job. Trust me, I have seen this, from the inside, in more than one location.

You've all heard me say engineering is not science. Science is the stuff that got written down. Managers do NOT like paying to write stuff down. Engineering is only about 40% science, it is 50% art (the stuff never written down), and 10% blind dumb luck. And that's in mature production work. In development work, the art and luck factors are higher. Often a lot higher.

Put all that together, and tell me I'm wrong about this. Today's Boeing is the Boeing that brought you an unairworthy 737MAX design, with software to make it stable, that they utterly botched, to the tune of two dead planeloads of people.

Today's Boeing brought you the 777X that is still unairworthy in the sense that it still cannot meet FAR-25 without cheating. They got caught cheating. That's why it's still not approved. A new wing is a new airplane, not an update to the pre-existing design.

Today's Boeing brought you the 787 assembly debacle whether the composite fuselage pieces fit together so poorly that they have to be individually reworked by the final assembly crew. Given that the Achilles heel of composite structures is fastener joints (trust me, I know about this!!!), just how airworthy do you think this craft REALLY is?

Today's Boeing brought you the SLS launch rocket a decade behind schedule and dozens of $billions over budget, that will cost OVER (!!!) 1.5 billion per launch to fly, if it ever really does. Closing on $2 billion to launch a throwaway rocket that they can only build 2 of in a year, and which can only deliver 130 tons to LEO. Compare that to two Falcon Heavys that can fling 130 tons to LEO for a published price under $250 million, if flown non-reusably. Or about 7 Atlas-5 552 configurations for about $200 million each, totalling (only) $1.4 billion.

So, why are you surprised that today's Boeing has brought you a space capsule that still cannot fly (because of egregiously undebugged software and improper propellant valve selection, and who knows what else?), after spending twice the time, and twice the money, that Spacex did getting crew Dragon operational?

Disappointed, yes. But surprised? Not me.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2021-08-16 14:07:05)

Oldfart1939 · 2021-08-16 17:33:53

In almost every manufacturing industry, the bean-counters always seem to have sway over the technical people. Same in the chemical process industry. I was pretty diligent about writing down what I actually did, and the stuff that worked for the bean counters in order for them to have enough left to count after the cost of manufacturing a product.
But as GW said above, it's the unwritten art that gets lost in time, and has to be reinvented time and time again. Dumb luck is just an unrefined and undefined form of this "art."

SpaceNut · 2021-08-16 18:57:28

If this had been selecting parts for a submarine we would have lost the vessel and crew....
Seems that less needs to be relearned once more....

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-03-21 07:29:00

There are reports Boeing’s Starliner “Paused” after Issues at the Station.

Boeing Reveals Suits For Starliner Astronauts
https://www.wmfe.org/boeing-reveals-sui … auts/68919

How SpaceX Saves NASA $100 Million Per Flight
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-spa … 1647772801

GW Johnson wrote:

Said corporate management recently bragged in public about changing Boeing from a focus on engineering excellence to a focus on shareholder value. That change has brought you the 737MAX unairworthiness debacle, the 777X unairworthiness debacle, the 787 assembly troubles that threaten airworthiness, and now Starliner.

BBC news is reporting another 737 crashed, this time in China
https://www.bbc.com/news

Others news say flight carrying 133 people crashed all feared dead

Some old blogs and bulletin board forums are already discussing what may have happened

' China Eastern Boeing 737 Passenger Plane Crashes In Tengxian Mountain With 132 Onboard '
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/5255314
'China Eastern's flight No. 5735 had been traveling at around 30,000 feet when suddenly, just after 0620 GMT, the plane entered a deep dive at its cruising altitude speed of 455 knots (523 mph), according to data from flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com. The data suggests the plane crashed within a minute and a half of whatever went wrong. '
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/o-t … 101797826/
'Footage of the crash site (from a distance) is already out there. Definitely a no survivors situation. It went into a dive from 29-30,000 feet.'

Flight 24
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airc … 1#2b367bc1

Automatic Dependent Surveillance aka ADS–B is a surveillance tech which an aircraft determines its position via sat navigation or other sensors and periodically broadcasts, enabling it to be tracked.

info
https://mobile.twitter.com/flightradar2 … 9994457092
pic
https://twitter.com/flightradar24/statu … 86/photo/1

from the data it looks like the Pilot or Pilots almost recovered the Commercial Passenger Aircraft half way through the fall

one twitter user comments
'rapid descent, it sharply ascended then descended again?'

China Eastern Grounds Its Boeing 737-800 Fleet Following Fatal Crash
https://simpleflying.com/china-eastern- … tal-crash/

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-03-21 12:30:26)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-05-04 17:15:53

NASA sets mid-May launch for Boeing Starliner spacecraft's initial trip to ISS

https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA … S_999.html

SpaceNut · 2022-05-04 20:02:58

valves were sealed shut due to corrosion from moisture interacting with an oxidizer,
engineers were able to determine that a mixture of nitrogen tetroxide, or NTO, which is used as an oxidizer in rocket fuel, and ambient moisture interacted with the aluminum covering on the valves.
in order to mitigate corrosion and reduce moisture, going forward we will load the NTO later [in the fueling process] and cycle the valves every few days

Seems that engineers have forgotten how to design.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-05-05 10:38:26

Piece Falls Off Boeing Starliner as It Trundles Toward Launchpad

https://futurism.com/piece-falls-off-bo … rliner/amp

SpaceNut · 2022-05-05 18:35:52

What is troubling is Boeing is a contractor for the SLS as well and its got problems too...

SpaceNut · 2023-11-24 09:35:37

bump

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#1 2021-08-03 12:14:05

Boeing Starliner launch delays

#2 2021-08-03 19:10:27

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#3 2021-08-04 11:09:39

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#4 2021-08-08 15:14:49

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#5 2021-08-08 17:12:45

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#6 2021-08-12 10:06:56

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#7 2021-08-12 12:15:04

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#8 2021-08-12 19:50:38

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#9 2021-08-13 15:41:31

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#10 2021-08-14 09:52:44

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#11 2021-08-14 10:34:05

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#12 2021-08-15 06:37:21

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#13 2021-08-15 11:29:21

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#14 2021-08-16 08:08:46

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#15 2021-08-16 10:57:22

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#16 2021-08-16 11:56:31

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#17 2021-08-16 13:58:15

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#18 2021-08-16 17:33:53

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#19 2021-08-16 18:57:28

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#20 2022-03-21 07:29:00

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#21 2022-05-04 17:15:53

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#22 2022-05-04 20:02:58

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#23 2022-05-05 10:38:26

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#24 2022-05-05 18:35:52

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

#25 2023-11-24 09:35:37

Re: Boeing Starliner launch delays

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