Boeing capsule launches to wrong orbit

[amdorintel]

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/boeing-capsule-launches-to-wrong-orbit-skips-space-station/ar-BBYbOIP

Quote

 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Boeing's new Starliner capsule ended up in the wrong orbit after lifting off on its first test flight Friday, a blow to the company's effort to launch astronauts for NASA next year.

As the company scrambled to understand what happened, NASA cancelled the Starliner's docking with the International Space Station, instead focusing on a hastier than planned return to Earth. The Starliner will parachute into its landing site in the New Mexico desert on Sunday.

 

Officials stressed the capsule was stable and safe, and that had astronauts been aboard, they would have been in no danger. A crew may have been able to take over control and salvage the mission. The problem was with the Starliner's mission clock: It was off-kilter, which delayed timed-commands to put the capsule in the right orbit. Engineers worried the problem could resurface during descent.

It was a major setback for Boeing, which had been hoping to catch up with SpaceX, NASA's other commercial crew provider that successfully completed a similar demonstration last March. SpaceX has one last hurdle — a launch abort test — before carrying two NASA astronauts in its Dragon capsule, possibly by spring.

NASA officials did not think Friday's problem would hold up SpaceX, but said they would need to make sure nothing was in common between the two companies' on-board mission timers. Ground controllers were puzzled over why the Starliner's timer was not working properly when the capsule separated from the rocket and began flying freely.

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a rainbow over a body of water: In this long exposure photo, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Boeing Starliner crew capsule lifts off on an orbital flight test to the International Space Station from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force station, Friday, Dec. 20, 2019, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. 

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1/3 SLIDES © Provided by The Canadian Press

In this long exposure photo, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Boeing Starliner crew capsule lifts off on an orbital flight test to the International Space Station from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force station, Friday, Dec. 20, 2019, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. 

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said it was too soon to know whether Boeing would need to conduct another orbital test flight without a crew, before flying astronauts. The company had been shooting for its first crew launch by the middle of next year. An additional test flight would almost certainly push the first astronaut flight back.

Boeing's Jim Chilton, a senior vice-president, stopped by the Starliner's manufacturing plant at Kennedy Space Center to address employees on his way to a sombre news conference.

“These are passionate people who are committing a big chunk of their lives to put Americans back in space from our soil, so it's disappointing for us,” Chilton told reporters.

It's been nearly nine years since NASA astronauts have launched from the U.S. The last time was July 8, 2011, when Atlantis — now on display at Kennedy Space Center — made the final space shuttle flight.

Since then, NASA astronauts have travelled to and from the space station via Kazakhstan, courtesy of the Russian Space Agency. The Soyuz rides have cost NASA up to $86 million apiece.

The space agency handed over station deliveries to private businesses, first cargo and then crews, in order to focus on getting astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars.

Commercial cargo ships took flight in 2012. Crew capsules were more complicated to design and build, and parachute and other technical problems caused repeated delays. Target launch dates starting with 2017 came and went. Last April, a SpaceX crew capsule — the same one that flew to the space station a month earlier — exploded during a ground test.

The U.S. needs companies competing like this, Bridenstine said Thursday, to drive down launch costs, boost innovation and open space up to more people. He stressed the need for more than one company in case of problems that kept one grounded.

Friday's blastoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station started flawlessly as the Atlas V rocket lifted off with the Starliner just before sunrise. But a half-hour into the flight, the trouble became apparent.

Ground controllers tried to send up commands to get the spacecraft in its proper orbit, but the signals did not get there and by then it was too late. The capsule tried to fix its position, burning too much fuel for the spacecraft to safely make it to the space station on Saturday for a weeklong stay.

All three astronauts assigned to the first Starliner crew were at control centres for the launch: Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann, both with NASA, and Boeing's Chris Ferguson, who commanded the last shuttle mission. He's now a test pilot astronaut for Boeing and one of the Starliner's key developers.

"This is why we flight test, right? We're trying to get all of the bugs, if you will, out of the system," said Fincke at the briefing. "There's always something."

Built to accommodate seven, the white capsule with black and blue trim will typically carry four or five people. It's 16.5 feet (5 metres) tall with its attached service module and 15 feet (4.5 metres) in diameter.

For the test flight, the Starliner carried Christmas treats and presents for the six space station residents, the original air travel ID card belonging to Boeing's founder and a mannequin, named Rosie after the bicep-flexing riveter of World War II.

The flight was designed to test all systems, from the vibrations and stresses of liftoff to the touchdown at the Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, with parachutes and air bags to soften the landing.

Boeing, a longtime partner in NASA's human spacecraft program, had hoped to close out the year with a success. The company's troubled 737 Max airliners remain grounded, and earlier this week, officials said production would be halted in January.

“Space system malfunctions happen all the time, so it’s tough to draw a broader conclusion, other than bad end to a bad year,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aircraft industry analyst at the Teal Group.

Boeing got more than $4 billion in 2014 to develop and fly the Starliner, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion for a crew-version of its Dragon cargo ship.

On the eve of the launch, Bridenstine said NASA wants to make sure every reasonable precaution is taken with the capsules, designed to be safer than the shuttles.

“We're talking about human spaceflight,” he cautioned. “It's not for the faint of heart. It never has been, and it's never going to be."

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Business writer Cathy Bussewitz in New York contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

 

 

Sounds like a major problem that needs to be fixed and that every reasonable precaution was not taken. how much money was wasted was not mentioned but it would be good to know.

luckily no crew members were on board, but that is just a fluke.

2020 will be a way better year guaranteed

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bombastinator]

There’s some pretty hardcore math that goes into a space shot, and it relies on equipment working perfectly.  Apparently something didn’t.  The margin of error is often tiny.  Gonna take em a while to figure it out.  It’s not as bad as the virgin galactic boner where they ran liquid oxygen across an aluminum plate.  That one killed a bunch of folks.  Big boom.  

[williamcll]

Are they going to get the rocket back down or what?

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Are they going to get the rocket back down or what?

Whether they want it or not I suspect. A wrong orbit usually means a non stable one.

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

There’s some pretty hardcore math that goes into a space shot, and it relies on equipment working perfectly.  Apparently something didn’t.  The margin of error is often tiny.  Gonna take em a while to figure it out.  It’s not as bad as the virgin galactic boner where they ran liquid oxygen across an aluminum plate.  That one killed a bunch of folks.  Big boom.  

 

Hadn't heard about that mess with virgin,y you got more details?

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Hadn't heard about that mess with virgin,y you got more details?

It was years ago.  They ran a lox line across an aluminum plate.  Lox that moves generates current when passed over aluminum.  It’s also really expolsive.  Killed like 4 people or something I was told.  Set virgin back years.  They’re only coming out of it lately.

[CarlBar]

7 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

It was years ago.  They ran a lox line across an aluminum plate.  Lox that moves generates current when passed over aluminum.  It’s also really expolsive.  Killed like 4 people or something I was told.  Set virgin back years.  They’re only coming out of it lately.

 

Thats officially a weird ass interaction. Yikes.

[circeseye]

maybe boeing decided the capsule only needed one sensor instead of 2 to 3 like they pulled with the 737 max lol

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, CarlBar said:

 

Thats officially a weird ass interaction. Yikes.

There’s this wonderful piece of a blog i was shown once called ”Things I won’t work with”

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/things-i-wont-work-with It’s got even crazier stuff in it.

Science can kill you.  Killed my dad we think.  And he was a cellular entomologist which one would think was a pretty safe profession.

[TechyBen]

The rocket/capsule is on a corrected orbit that will now bring it down at the planned landing zone.

It burnt through a lot of it's needed fuel, and also missed needed time scales for a rendezvous with the ISS and correct/easy/smooth and normal transfer orbit. So it could be put in a safe orbit, but would be useless up there.

 

It was always a planned test of launch/orbit/return, and an ISS docking was an extra bonus if they got to do it. However, it's failure is still a failure. The correction trim was too sensitive, and the engines kept firing to correct tiny unneeded movements. So it wobbled back and forth from it's target direction. Like trying to use a mouse or joystick with sensitivity turned way too high.  

 

This was due to a few problems all happening at the same time. The "timer" for it's launch computer was set wrong. So it was stuck in super sensitive mode, instead of resting, and just cruising to the ISS, it kept firing the engines to get a better direction (though it was already close enough to be fine).

 

Plus the comms system has a tiny black spot they cannot transmit to. Guess what happened on launch day? The comms satellites were aligned perfectly that the dead spot/shadow was at just the point the fault happened. XD

 

 

But now it should be ok to land this thing.

[amdorintel]

12 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Set virgin back years.

plus about $20M per person!

 

12 hours ago, williamcll said:

Are they going to get the rocket back down or what?

it will come back down in a day or two or something like that

[spartaman64]

 

[Arika]

reminds me of the Mars Climate Orbiter that destoryed itself in the atmosphere of mars because someone at NASA didn't convert the orbit distance between imperial and metric

[amdorintel]

14 minutes ago, Arika S said:

reminds me of the Mars Climate Orbiter that destoryed itself in the atmosphere of mars because someone at NASA didn't convert the orbit distance between imperial and metric

 

 

co$tly mi$take$

[rabbitanarchy14]

if it was viable as a place to live and work i would love to live in space around a different planet. i dont know if i will be able to in my lifetime.

[straight_stewie]

Boeing seems to be having trouble with their flight control systems lately.

I do find it odd, however, that NASA wants to hold Space-X up because of Boeings failure: Space-X is not part of the United Launch Alliance, and is otherwise not partnered with Boeing in any way. This is equivalent to stopping the production of Dodge Challengers because a Chevrolet Camaro has an issue with its ECU.

[TechyBen]

8 hours ago, Arika S said:

reminds me of the Mars Climate Orbiter that destoryed itself in the atmosphere of mars because someone at NASA didn't convert the orbit distance between imperial and metric

Or the IIRC Russian rocket that launched the abort system on the launchpad (with people in it) because it had been hours since the abort and they were about to retry the launch... no one reset/turned off the gyro, and as the earth rotated, the gyro followed, until it told the abort system "the rocket is falling over", which it was not.

[Bombastinator]

5 hours ago, rabbitanarchy14 said:

if it was viable as a place to live and work i would love to live in space around a different planet. i dont know if i will be able to in my lifetime.

I’m not sure if it will ever be viable.  Humans are fragile.  We evolved for gravity and have very fragile parts like dna that can’t handle being bombarded by things like cosmic rays.  We’re probably stuck here.  Make the planet sustainable or we die out.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

I’m not sure if it will ever be viable.  Humans are fragile.  We evolved for gravity and have very fragile parts like dna that can’t handle being bombarded by things like cosmic rays.  We’re probably stuck here.  Make the planet sustainable or we die out.

While I generally agree,  I *really* do,  there are options that would make living on another "planet" possible and not especially unhealthy either. 

 

For example, Europa a moon orbiting Jupiter could be "easily" (as in if money and willingness wasn't an issue) "terraformed" to habitat life from Earth  -  well, at least theoretically - since no one's tried it yet... 

 

But you really have to look in the details for this kind of stuff to know how viable it is. 

 

The cosmic rays thing would probably be the biggest hurdle,  I'll give you that,  but not impossible to solve either imo. 

 

 

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

While I generally agree,  I *really* do,  there are options that would make living on another "planet" possible and not especially unhealthy either. 

 

For example, Europa a moon orbiting Jupiter could be "easily" (as in if money and willingness wasn't an issue) "terraformed" to habitat life from Earth  -  well, at least theoretically - since no one's tried it yet... 

 

But you really have to look in the details for this kind of stuff to know how viable it is. 

 

The cosmic rays thing would probably be the biggest hurdle,  I'll give you that,  but not impossible to solve either imo. 

 

 

People have looked at it.  It’s hard.  Some say it’s possible but the proposed solutions are only on the very edge of possible and are untested.

[thedangerine]

I watched the launch happen from Melbourne and the report afterwards. Issue was with the automation process, had a crew been on board they very likely could have fixed the issue and they would have had a high chance at docking with the ISS. I would say that no money was wasted because this was a test mission anyway. The whole point was to test everything out, a lot of the stuff they wanted to test worked perfectly and they got a lot of data on their systems. What I'm wondering now is what kind of timer or "clock" they are using in the space craft. I would assume that a gps has too much delay for how precise of timing they need and that a nuclear clock is required. Assuming they do in fact use a nuclear clock I wonder what was wrong with it. If it was built correctly it should be incredibly accurate, perhaps their was an issue with the interpretation of the data the clock was giving off 

[amdorintel]

9 hours ago, rabbitanarchy14 said:

if it was viable as a place to live and work i would love to live in space around a different planet. i dont know if i will be able to in my lifetime.

I like the way NDT words his favorite saying

- do you want to go into space and orbit around the earth as hundreds and hundreds have done before

not really

living on a different planet wouldn't be that great either until you can freely roam and the planet has been terraformed

[Bombastinator]

35 minutes ago, amdorintel said:

I like the way NDT words his favorite saying

- do you want to go into space and orbit around the earth as hundreds and hundreds have done before

not really

living on a different planet wouldn't be that great either until you can freely roam and the planet has been terraformed

Living at all is better than not living.  It may be what this is coming down to.  It’s not whether the living in space would be better it’s whether it would even be possible, and whether living here will even continue to be possible.

 

One of the scarier bits ive run into recently is it seems there are several layers of protection from interstellar abuse and one of them appears to be the solar system itself.  Those probes they launched back in the 70’s are still returning data and the data is disturbing.

[dalekphalm]

On 12/21/2019 at 11:36 PM, amdorintel said:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/boeing-capsule-launches-to-wrong-orbit-skips-space-station/ar-BBYbOIP

 

Sounds like a major problem that needs to be fixed and that every reasonable precaution was not taken. how much money was wasted was not mentioned but it would be good to know.

luckily no crew members were on board, but that is just a fluke.

2020 will be a way better year guaranteed

While this is a partial mission failure, it's really not as big of a deal as you're making it out to be.

 

It was a partial failure, yes. But as others have pointed out, a crew member likely would have noticed the issue immediately and corrected it. Aside from that, they'll have time to re-test everything. My guess is that there was a simple code error or a defective part.

On 12/22/2019 at 12:56 AM, williamcll said:

Are they going to get the rocket back down or what?

The "rocket" was actually an Atlas V in the N22 configuration - this rocket was destroyed upon re-entry, as all Atlas rockets are. Boeing doesn't re-use the rocket.

 

The capsule (or Command Module - whatever you want to call it), is called Starliner - that's the bit that reached orbit. It went into the wrong orbit.

 

It actually already landed back in the US yesterday morning at around 8 AM EST in New Mexico. The descent went flawlessly, from what I can tell, so whatever guidance/clock issues they had during takeoff were unaffected here.

7 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

Boeing seems to be having trouble with their flight control systems lately.

I do find it odd, however, that NASA wants to hold Space-X up because of Boeings failure: Space-X is not part of the United Launch Alliance, and is otherwise not partnered with Boeing in any way. This is equivalent to stopping the production of Dodge Challengers because a Chevrolet Camaro has an issue with its ECU.

NASA isn't going to hold up Space-X - all they said is that they'll check to make sure there are no commonalities between the two system's Clock System (no shared parts, code, etc). Since they are likely totally different systems with no similarities, this should be no problem.

 

As soon as they verify that, Space-X is good to go. It shouldn't affect any Space-X timeframes at all.

[lewdicrous]

Wrong orbit? They just lost their CEO too.