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Now, Boeing wants to restart the project. On August 3, Orbital Flight Test 2, or OFT-2, will send Starliner to the ISS again. The company cannot afford another failure.
“There is a lot of reliability that is at stake here,” says Greg Autry, an astronomer at Arizona State University. Nothing looks better than the space shuttle that drives people. ”
The evening of July 30 was a vivid reminder of this appearance. After Russia’s new 23-tonnage of Nauka with the ISS, it began firing abruptly and illegally, moving the ISS in its rightful place and around. NASA and Russia solved the problem and things calmed down in less than an hour, but we don’t know what happened, and it’s not dangerous to imagine what would have happened if things had gotten worse. The whole matter is still under investigation and has compelled NASA to change the establishment of the Starliner from July 31 to August 3rd.
It’s the kind of fast-paced Boeing that you want to avoid, thanks to OFT-2 and any future work with people on board.
How Starliner got here
The closure of the space shuttle in 2011 gave NASA the opportunity to reconsider its approach. Instead of building a new spacecraft designed to go to Earth lowbit, the board decided to select opportunities for the general public as part of the new Commercial Crew Program. It gave Boeing and SpaceX a chance to create their own cars: Starliner and Crew Dragon, respectively. NASA purchased flights to the car and strived to develop new mission technologies for the moon, Mars, and elsewhere.
Both companies were delayed in development, and for nine years the only way to secure NASA space was to provide millions of dollars to Russia to become Soyuz mission chairs. SpaceX finally sent spacecraft in May 2020 (followed by two other services since then), but Boeing would have stayed behind. His December 2019 flight is due to ensure that all of its equipment operates, and that it can withstand the ISS and return to Earth safely. But glitch and its internal watch it caused it to burn for a long time, making it difficult to board with the ISS.
Subsequent research showed that a second glitch it would have caused Starliner to fire its shooters at the wrong time on its way back to Earth, which could have destroyed the ship. The glitch was set up just hours before Starliner returned home. Software tools are not only amazing in aircraft design, but also in materials Boeing would have had to deal with time to improve its performance or good monitoring from NASA.
Boeing has 21 months to address the issue. NASA has not requested another Starliner test; Boeing decided to remake it and run the $ 410 million fund.
“I hope the test goes well,” says Autry. “These problems were software-related, and these should be easily addressed.”
Risk factors
If things go wrong, the consequences depend on the circumstances. When a spacecraft encounters another software problem, there will be a pay hell, and it is difficult to see what the relationship between Boeing and NASA can be. Dangerous failures for some reason can also be bad, but the environment is unstable, and even minor setbacks that are difficult to anticipate and correct can lead to dangerous consequences. This can be forgiving.
If the new test doesn’t work, NASA will still work with Boeing, but the resumption “probably lasts a few years,” says Roger Handberg, a technical scientist at the University of Central Florida. “NASA may return to SpaceX to launch additional missions, which could disrupt Boeing.”
Boeing wants OFT-2 to run smoothly for further reasons to fulfill its partnership with NASA. SpaceX or Boeing did not design their new vehicles to operate the ISS — each had major ambitions. “There is a real need [for access to space] from very expensive people, was shown from the early 2000s, when several flew on Russian Soyuz, ”says Autry. “There is also a great deal of business in directing the international pilot team that is not ready to build their own cars.”
SpaceX is very competitive. That’s it special functions – its own and Through Axiom Space-It has already been mentioned for the next few years. More is sure to come, especially since then It’s over, Sierra Nevada, and some companies are planning to set up private parking bays.
Boeing’s biggest problem is price. NASA is paying the company $ 90 million per seat to fly passengers to the ISS, as opposed to $ 55 million per seat to SpaceX. “NASA could have it because after the space crisis, the agency didn’t want to rely on a single aircraft – if it exploded, everything would stop,” said Handberg. But only citizens and other countries can choose the cheapest option – and the most knowledgeable.
Boeing can use the best farming today. It is building a huge $ 20 billion base and is counting the Space Launch System, which will be the world’s most powerful rocket. But high costs and significant delays have occurred he turned it into a rod of resistance. Meanwhile, alternatives such as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and Super Heavy, New Glenn’s Blue Origin, and the Vulcan Centaur of ULA have emerged or are expected to start in the next few years. In 2019, NASA’s chief of staff looked at potential $ 661 million in Boeing corporations. And the company is one of the most mentioned people in the middle of investigating cases plus an old request to hold the moon.
If there was a time when Boeing wanted to remind people of what it could do and what it could do for the US space program, it’s next week.
“Some failures could make Boeing far behind SpaceX to be able to consider major changes in their operations,” says Handberg. “For Boeing, this is a show. ”
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