www.cnn.com/world/live-news/boeing-starliner-launch-06-05-24-scn/index.html
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1mo
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1mo
The U.S having two human capable launch systems of it's own is a vast improvement from the space of 2011-2020 where we were reliant on the Russians as the only way to get to the ISS. That comes with additional launch systems which plan to eventually become crewed capable still in the design process (Starship and Artemis). This is all such a remarkable turnaround from 5 years ago.
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1mo
Didn’t they use the Apollo spacecraft again briefly for the Soyuz rendezvous during the shuttle era?
NASA used a Saturn IB for the Skylab astronauts and the rendezvous.
It looked rather odd sitting on the "milk stool".
https://www.wired.com/2013/09/a-forgotten-rocket-the-saturn-ib/
https://www.drewexmachina.com/2018/05/25/sa-206-the-odyssey-of-a-saturn-ib/
It looks so small on that "milk stool," but I've seen one in person and it's definitely not small. Tricky perspective.
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1mo
You’re absolutely right. The Soyuz-Apollo mission predates the first Shuttle launch by almost six years. My apologies.
That was 5 or 6 years before the first Columbia launch.
Apollo-Soyuz was 1975. First shuttle flight was 1981.
Thank you for the correction.
technically three, if you count SLS
Sls is well over a year minimum from launching astronauts - bit of a stretch to call it crew capable
Will be 5 once Crew Dream Chaser and Crew Starship are up and running.
Does the X-15 count? The sub-orbital flights were in July/August 1963. If we use the AF definition of space at the time, it was a year earlier in July 1962.
The last Mercury flight was in May 1963, and Gemini didn't launch until 1965.
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1mo
Agreed, and I think orbital should be added to the criteria (that would eliminate the X-15 and New Sheppard)
Technically that would also eliminate Alan Shepard's Mercury I flight.
And it’s an even bigger improvement over before 2011 when we were reliant on the death trap that was the Space Shuttle
That’s unfair. The space shuttle worked for decades with 135 missions
And killed fourteen people. That’s 74% of all space deaths. Compare that to the Soyuz which has almost 60 years of work and zero deaths in the past fifty years.
Turn around? Due to concepts driven by business school management, the spacecraft started in 2003, When the Columbia made obvious major flaws in NASA management. The Constellation, Aries, and Orion were suppose to be flying in 2009. Just in time for the decommissioning of Space Shuttles.
Why depend on Russians? American business school graduates created another disaster. Same mentality that launched Challenger when not one engineer said it was safe. How many learn from history.
Since MBA types were now running it, the program was a complete disaster. Everything had to be redesigned many times over - being defective by design. By management that said we will construct the whole thing. And then test it when completed. As if that saves time and money.
It only took 20 years to finally do something. A spacecraft to carry seven only carries two. Because it is remains that dangerous - has that many problems.
Long after Constellation, et al, other companies started from scratch to make better, more advanced, and many times less expensive spacecraft. They even changed the name so that the most naive Americans would not realize what a fiasco the entire program has been. A tribute to what happens when extremists promote something rather than letting the educated (moderates) do it. A tribute to concepts taught in the business schools. Not concepts taught in science and engineering.
Constellation, Aries, and Orion renamed to Starship and Artemis to hide history from the most naive. Who only learn from soundbites and cost controls. Not from how the work get done.
So, 20 years of the "best MBAs" (quoting that, myself) have been dictating what is financially responsible while glossing over the nuts and bolts calculations to keep from repeating the challenger? I'm being genuine.
What they don't teach in business schools. Innovations that create profits today existed four, ten, and 20 years ago. When spread sheets only reported innovations as an expense.
Only innovations make profits, new markets, a wealthier economy, economic prosperity, increased productivity, increased jobs, and everything else. One need only look at GE to see what the MBA and bean counter mentality did to GE. And then look at what his disciples did to other companies such as Home Depot, Boeing, Chrysler, etc. Home Depot got smart. They paid a Jack Welch disciple $200 million to leave. Since that was cheaper than what he was doing to Home Depot.
What did another MBA do to Microsoft? In Steve Balmer's ten years, not one successful product came out of Microsoft. One need only look at all American steel companies to see how business school graduates destroyed that entire industry. As if a lie called 'economies of scale' called bigger blast furnaces as better. Watch Norfolk Southern slowly disintegrate now that a railroad man has been replaced by an MBA.
Three Mile Island is a tribute to MBA who refused to replace a defective valve that later resulted in a meltdown. During the event, operators could not even make phone calls for help. Three days later, someone who was patriotic (who came from where the work gets done - Denton) hooked up all phones in Three Mile Island to the White House switchboard.
Yes, MBAs are by far the most common reason for corporate failures. MetEd management could not even ask Bell of PA for more and working phone lines.
MetEd's bean counter, Anthony Alexander, also created what resulted in the 2003 NE blackout (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Ontario, NY and parts of other states).
Nothing financially responsible comes from spread sheets. Those only provide a 30% of information that product people need to make responsible decisions. Spread sheets only report things that happened four, ten, and 20 years ago. Long after the innovation is no longer innovative - and making profits.
Constellation, Aries, and Orion - trophies to a business school mentality. To keep us ignorant, they changed the name to Starship and Artemis.
I agree that nothing financially responsible comes from spreadsheets when the purveyors are not involved or educated from the ground up. I have to look into the other citations you made. But thank you for the information I can look into. Cheers.
Constellation, Aries, and Orion renamed to Starship and Artemis
Ares V had a lot in common with SLS, you could call that a renaming. The Constellation program was canceled and replaced by Artemis so you could think of that as a renaming and refocusing. Orion kept it's name from the Constellation days.
Starship was always a SpaceX program and was a rename of the BFR/ITS, but it is not related to Constellation. When NASA asked for companies to bid for Artemis landers SpaceX submitted the vehicle they were already developing for their own purposes. If you meant Starliner, that was also not a part of Constellation. Both Starliner and Crew Dragon were selected by NASA for fixed price development contracts in the Commercial Crew program.
Artemis is simply many redesigns of a defective Constellation, Ares, etc program. That had failure after design failure. Because of principles upon which it was based. Originally to be an upgrade of the Saturn V. Screw up after screw up means Artemis no longer looks anything like a Saturn V system. It had to be redesigned, almost from scratch, repeatedly.
Originally based on the Saturn V so as to cut costs. On a management theory that little engineering was necessary.
Spacex started developing the Falcon much later. It works successfully for a long time now. Because the program was not based in cost controls. Therefore costs many times less money.
The problems with NASA's manned spaceflight program, since the end of Apollo, have a whole lot more to do with politics than NASA's management. As evidence, I'd encourage you to take a look at all the things NASA has accomplished for science with unmanned spaceflight over the same period of time. The difference is that the public pay very little attention to that part of NASA's operations so it's much less politicized.
Robotic space missions are about 5% of NASA's budget. And do most all of its successful research.
The comedic relief from thinking they all sound like Mickey Mouse makes it easier.
I agree and any achievement like this should be celebrated but its an over simplification, yes we need more diversity but this launch system will never be used again. As the design is bad and the engines ti launch it are old tech. The money just went into the pockets of the people running Boeing into the ground. They only got the contract because of politics, same with the billions wasted on SLS. These companies are so fsr behind SpaceX because they sat around and did stock buy backs and not research. So again yes a good thing but also sad because its just been a waste.
Starliner is compatible with Vulcan and Falcon LVs. The Atlas V’s retirement doesn’t impact their ability to use this design at all. NASA gets final say on the launch procurement and could easily pivot to using Falcon 9 for Boeing’s craft.
SLS was approved during a time where we had no alternative options for heavy lift, and Shuttle was retiring. Betting on a single commercial entity like SpaceX to not crash and burn (financially or literally) is not NASA’s style. They hadn’t even launched an ISS cargo mission at that point. So you can argue it was wasted. But the SLS was an insurance policy against commercial space taking longer to come up to speed.
NASA doesn't actually get final say on the launch vehicle. Boeing proposed starliner on atals V for the first 6 missions. That's the only contract they have. Once those missions are up NASA can't just force Boeing to crew rate Vulcan for starliner launches. If Boeing doesn't want to then they don't have to.
SLS wasn't an insurance policy against commercial crew taking a while. It was meant as a heavy Launcher for NASA to get back to deep space exploration. There was no expectation that commercial entities would build out an equivalent eventually. It just was managed so poorly and took so long that commercial entities have managed to build out similar capacity rockets.
I was speaking to after the 6 launch contract when atlas is set to retire. And yes. Boeing doesn’t have to crew rate Vulcan, but they’d be foolish not to pursue it in the face of the option to launch on a Falcon.
Not going to comment on the management of SLS, I’m not denying Boeing’s failures there. But what I’m trying to say, is there wasn’t a better entity to pick up the next heavy launch vehicle at the time.
At the time SLS was created, there was no mission for it. SLS was created at the instigation Congress (and certain members in particular, including the current NASA administrator) precisely because the Shuttle and the expensive and delayed program (Constellation) to return to the Moon using a Shuttle derived rocket were cancelled, leaving the Shuttle contractors like Boeing without a big project. SLS was a rocket to nowhere. All NASA was given was a lunar/"deep space" capsule (that could only support its crew for 3 weeks, and could not get into and out of a proper lunar orbit because it was designed for Constellation's architecture) and a rocket that could barely fling that overweight and underpowered spacecraft to the Moon. With these limited options, NASA came up with the Asteroid Redirect Mission (a robotic mission to bring a piece of an asteoeid into NRHO/DRO so Orion could visit it) and then what would become the Gateway. But until several years later when the program that became Artemis started to crystallize, SLS and Orion had no clear reason to exist except as a jobs program and subsidy/slush fund for Boeing, Lockheed, and others.
Assuming instead that there was a real desire and clear vision to return to the Moon, a super heavy-lift launch vehicle was not even necessary. Distributed lift and Earth/lunar orbit rendezvous using existing commercial medium and heavy lift rockets like Atlas V, Delta IV Heavy, Ariane 5, and the then-new Falcon 9 could have been used. ULA even had studies and plans for orbital propellant depots. But Boeing and Congress forced ULA and NASA to cease and desist because the Shuttle Ares SLS must go on.
Edit: typos
That’s asinine. All of them have spent billions on research.
yes we need more diversity but this launch system will never be used again.
Starliner has been contracted for at least 6 other launches.
Was contracted, it will not be doing them as they will not hav an engine to launch it. Also the leak is a design flaw and it won't be able to do multiple launches. NASA just also opened more contracts up to SpaceX , those contracts cover the launches thay Statliner would of did. Boeing literally couldn't afford it, the money they were given already covers the contracted launches. With thier legal troubles , they are not getting more capital either.
Going to need a source on Starliner not being able to do multiple launches.
ULA has 122 RD-180s as of 3 years ago and stated they had enough for all their remaining missions with the Atlas V which includes 6 operational Starliner missions.
Edit: Starliner can also fly on Vulcan which uses American built BE-4 engines.
After flying the six contracted flights to the ISS, Starliner will still have plenty of business opportunity with the upcoming LEO commercial stations. Of course we don't know how competitive it will be against Dragon, but if the LEO market grows as well as NASA hopes it does, both craft will continue to be used for a long time.
It has to fly again first, it also already cost 5xs more than. The SpaceX alternatives. Im all for diversity just mot wasting money on old tech and dinosaurs contractors.
Starliner will fly at least 6 more times, Boeing is contractually obligated to do that. And this is a fixed price contract so NASA is not paying any additional money due to the delays.
We’ve done it! We’ve gone back to the sixties! Once this program dies, it’ll be hot air balloons and rope ladders to orbit.
GG Nasa + ULA + Boeing. Took long enough, but it is still successful so far
Well it finally happened. It’s way late, there’s been so many issues that came up, but the engineers at Boeing must be feeling great right now. I felt like this day would never come and I am definitely not someone who has been pulling their hair out the last five years trying to get this to fly.
Hopefully the rest of the mission is a success and we can two reliable spaceships capable of putting astronauts in space.
Series of helium leaks in the propulsion system currently being troubleshooted by ground support. Though Christian Davenport says he's been told it poses no problems for flight and there are redundant systems.
Well it's about damn time!
Truly I would love to see more launch providers sending astronauts to space.
Starliner, Dragon, Orion, Soyuz, CNSA with shenzou (I think), ISRO with Gaganyaan(?) in a couple years, maybe Dream Chaser by 2030, maybe Starship in the next decade.
That's quite a lot of (possible) crew capability compared to historic crew capabilities.
Indeed. And it's worth highlighting that, despite all the whining, the US has crew in space right now that were launched on two different capsules, and it has another crew capable capsule as well (Orion). And yet another vehicle in development for getting crew to space (the crewed Dream Chaser variant which Sierra Space has soft committed to).
That's in addition to the ISS, the Lunar Gateway Station, Haven-1, Orbital Reef, Starlab, and Axiom Station, all of which are space stations that already exist or are planned to be built within the next few years. And it doesn't include Starship-HLS or Blue Moon, which are yet other crewed spacecraft (for lunar landings) which have been funded and are currently being developed and built.
Yes we could be managing some of these programs much more effectively and making smarter choices, but let's be clear, there is an abundance of riches flowing right now in human spaceflight above and beyond anything in history. There are more operational spacecraft carrying crew to/from orbit than there ever have been (which will only increase in the next few years with Mengzhou and Gaganyaan). There are more existing and planned space stations than there ever have been. There are more planned and funded beyond LEO human spacecraft than there ever have been.
This is the new space age, people should be careful about getting so caught up in criticizing its imperfections that they miss out on appreciating and enjoying it.
Also Mengzhou and Orel/Federatsiya (we'll see) this decade. Possibly even Nyx from the EU private space company The Exploration Company. Blue Origin is talking about their own crewed orbital vehicle.
What an exciting time!
Ok but I still miss my space truck
Those space trucks, aka Shuttles really did get the job done!
When not blowing up at least
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| BE-4 | Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN |
| BFR | Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition) |
| Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice | |
| CNSA | Chinese National Space Administration |
| CST | (Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules |
| Central Standard Time (UTC-6) | |
| DRO | Distant Retrograde Orbit |
| EDL | Entry/Descent/Landing |
| ETOV | Earth To Orbit Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket") |
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| GSE | Ground Support Equipment |
| HLS | Human Landing System (Artemis) |
| ISRO | Indian Space Research Organisation |
| ITS | Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT) |
| Integrated Truss Structure | |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LV | Launch Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket"), see ETOV |
| MBA | |
| MCT | Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS) |
| NRHO | Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit |
| RCS | Reaction Control System |
| RD-180 | RD-series Russian-built rocket engine, used in the Atlas V first stage |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Starliner | Boeing commercial crew capsule CST-100 |
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| scrub | Launch postponement for any reason (commonly GSE issues) |
NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
19 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 18 acronyms.
[Thread #10123 for this sub, first seen 5th Jun 2024, 16:16]
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ULA - Lockheed finally got frustrated and pulled out. But then anyone can appreciate why by looking at what happened to Boeing starting in 2001. And the spacecraft that was suppose to fly in 2009. It took 20 years to finally test one. Another trophy of that management is Boeing 737 Max.
Not sure of your info source, or if I'm misunderstanding you, but ULA always was and still is a 50/50 joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed.
I had heard that but never followed up with confirmation. You are correct. My mistake. In fact, much talk is about Boeing leaving the ULA since they have lost money on the Delta series. Was rumored to withdraw when the Delta IV ends.
Boeing also lost money on their other program - Sea Launch. Which self destructed in about 2016.
Atlas series, provided by Lockheed, is being phased out. Since Vulcan was suppose to be operation in 2019. Many failures created rumors of both parties withdrawing. Then ULA was put up for sale in 2023.
With a first launch of Vulcan eventually in 2024, the consortium may survive.
Triple redundancy into manned space now: Soyuz, SpaceX and Starliner. Good.
Hopefully Crew Dream Chaser next so the US will have triple redundancy in itself and never need to rely on Soyuz again. Time for Russia to get Federatsiya/Orel off the ground anyway and retire the obsolete Soyuz. That poor, beleaguered thing is in dire need of a well-deserved and well-earned rest. It's literally as old as Apollo. Literally.
We must cut off all funding for the russian space program. Russia is not only invading its neighbors, it is also trying to put nuclear weapons in space.
You have no idea what you’re talking about
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1mo
Ignorance is bliss. They don't read the news that counters their beliefs
That’s the spacex fanboy way
Over on the SpaceX Lounge subreddit, there's a discussion about this very launch and it's pretty laid back with discussions about the technical details of the mission.
Sure, not all of them are terribly toxic.
Just the ones in your imagination?
What about the people who are toxic and spamming every time spacex has an error? Is that all non-SpaceX fans, or just the vocal minority?
Not in this thread because only Boeing failures are viral atm. Sad this sort of thread doesn't make the front page :(.
Wish it had more cameras to view along its journey. Congrats to a wonderful accomplishment.
I'm not that familiar with this project. Isn't Starliner the rocket that's supposed to eventually be used to get people back to the moon and what was todays goals?
From the 4 hours video I checked out seemed they launched, detached then had the capsel come back immediately to earth. But some other news site mentioned it was going to doc with ISS.
i believe you are thinking of orion, which launches on sls and is used for the artemis missions
they do look similar
So Starliner is more of a Boeing competitor to SpaceX?
Starliner was supposed to compete with the Dragon capsule for being the primary vehicle to deliver astronauts to LEO for ISS. One could say it's a little behind schedule and costs more than intended.
Edit: It was originally scheduled to fly astronauts to the ISS in 2018.
Thanks, just read the wiki article and wow what a train wreck the past 10 years. Glad it finally made it.
Still not sure what todays launchs goal was other than to prove they could safely put a person in space. Some places say they were going to dock with he ISS to transfer cargo, another mentioned some of the people staying on ISS for 1 week, others 6 months. The video I watched looked like it detached but ultimately started back for earth. Lots of confusion.
This is basically the beginning of the contract. The idea is that Boeing and SpaceX provide transportation services to the ISS. I think each was originally contracted for 6 launches. Since Boeing is so far behind, SpaceX has completed their first contract and is on to their 2nd. For Boeing, this completes the qualification phase and they can now provide rides per the original contract (plus an additional $300M that Boeing somehow managed to finagle).
As I understand it, it's purely to satisfy the contract. Having an alternative commercial craft was supposed to be a type of insurance in case a commercial provider couldn't satisfy the contract and foster competition so one company didn't have a monopoly to access.
Boeing/ULA were supposed to take this opportunity like SpaceX did to kickstart a revolution in commercial space.
And Boeing was plan A. SpaceX was supposed to be the backup.
Boeing was certainly hoping they could do what SpaceX is doing with Dragon and sell Starliner to space tourists and the like, but the program just became too delayed and too expensive to be viable in that role.
Still not sure what todays launchs goal was other than to prove they could safely put a person in space.
Yeah, that's about right actually.
Assuming everything goes well, this mission will be the final test-flight of Starliner before it begins normal service ferrying crews to / from the ISS.
IIRC, there were two previous test flights, neither of which carried any crew. The first flight made it to orbit but failed to dock with the ISS due to a software issue. The second flight was able to dock successfully and stayed at the ISS for a couple of days before undocking and returning to earth.
For this flight, the astronauts will stay aboard the ISS for about a week while they perform the final testing and checkouts of Starliner. After that, they will return to earth aboard Starliner.
For regular ISS missions, the crew stay aboard for about 6 months at a time.
Dragon went through a similar sequence of test flights, but notably did not experience any serious issues like Starliner did.
Starliner is an ISS crew rotation vehicle, just like crew Dragon. This particular mission is the first "demo" flight with actual crew to the ISS. They are carrying crew, they have successfully launched and are in orbit right now, they will dock with the ISS tomorrow, they'll hang out and do some testing and whatnot for roughly a week, then they'll return and (hopefully) have a safe and uneventful landing.
This is basically their qualification flight for the 6 operational crew rotation missions NASA has contracted them for. Each of those will be basically the same as SpaceX's similar crew rotation flights: 4 crew on 6 month flights.
SpaceX has already finished its original 6 contracted crew rotations and is already working through a contract extension. Very likely if Boeing/ULA are able to meet the pace then we will see both SpaceX and Boeing providing 1 crew rotation flight per year each for the next 6 years or so on an alternating schedule, for a total of 2 NASA funded crew rotation flights per year.
it lifted off, it doesn't dock until tomorrow afternoon
Wow so they are stuck in that tiny capsule for over 24 hours. That's rough.
costs more than intended.
It does cost more than originally projected. But isn't the ongoing cost issue that reusable rockets are always going to cost less per launch than throwaway rockets?
Is the Starliner spacecraft (as opposed to the launch vehicle) significantly more expensive to build and operate than Dragon? Presumably Starliner can be launched on other, potentially reusable, launch vehicles, no?
It's not just that each launch is much more expensive, the development costs were way more expensive as Boeing and ULA got more money from uncle sugar to reward them for cost overruns and delays.
Edit: to answer your other question, starliner cannot be launched from another rocket.
Wrong. Starliner was designed to be compatible with a wide range of launch vehicles, including the Atlas V, Delta IV, Falcon 9, and Vulcan Centaur.
Delta was retired, so can't launch on those. Vulcan doesn't work yet, so can't launch on those either.
Designed to be compatible with those. It can easily launch on Falcon, and if they need more launches or have any Atlas issues that's what they'll do without any issues.
The question was what it can launch on. It can't launch on those rockets, and that includes falcon 9 without a costly effort to design, build and test a module adapter and build a new tower with a different crew access arm. This will never happen.
I'll grant that given enough time and money, a creative set of engineers can make anything fly atop anything though, but that's not realistic and I suspect isn't what you were thinking.
It can be launched from Falcon and likely will. Your answer is wrong. Additionally, the capsule was designed to work with dleta and vulcan, their retirement has nothing to do with the design. Go back under your bridge troll.
The question was what it can launch on. It can't launch on those rockets, and that includes falcon 9 without a costly effort to design, build and test a module adapter and build a new tower with a different crew access arm. This will never happen.
I'll grant that given enough time and money, a creative set of engineers can make anything fly atop anything though, but that's not realistic and I suspect isn't what you were thinking.
Starliner is compatible with Vulcan, and Falcon 9 as well. So not true that it cannot be launched from another rocket.
Boeing and ULA got more money from uncle sugar
I thought I had read recently that Boeing was having to eat the cost overruns. Apparently not.
starliner cannot be launched from another rocket.
Wow. It's incredible that Boeing didn't figure out sometime in the past 10 years that throwaway launch vehicles are going the way of the dodo. I wonder what the thought process was that convinced them they don't need to be compatible with a reusable vehicle for Starliner to succeed.
I thought I had read recently that Boeing was having to eat the cost overruns.
They are, it was a fixed price contract for both Boeing and SpaceX. All extra costs are incurred by the company, not by the agency.
Starliner is compatible with Vulcan. However, Vulcan has not be crew rated. That costs time, money, and engineering changes (usually). They haven't decided if they will crew rate Vulcan or not. Probably depends entirely on commercial space station progress and on how the remaining starliner flights go.
Maybe throwaway launch vehicles are eventually going the way of the dodo but the engineering behind first stage recoveries is incredibly hard, and only Space X has actually figured out how to do that and actually end a mission with a first stage safe and ready to be refurbished for another mission. So far I just see a bunch of plans and prospective designs from other companies and other nation's space agencies.
Starliner is a competitor/supporter to Dragon and Dream Chaser, correct. Orion has no competitor. It's the direct NASA successor to the Space Shuttle and Apollo. It's like a Neo-Apollo. Orion is a direct NASA crewed space program in the lineage of Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Shuttle (and the VentureStar that was canceled).
Starliner, Dragon, and Dream Chaser are under a separate private-public joint venture program that's never been done before in NASA history. The Commercial Crew Program (CCP).
It’s possible you were viewing an older video of Starliner’s first launch, which was uncrewed and famously experienced multiple serious & semi-serious issues which caused it to fail to reach orbit.
Today’s mission was Starliner’s third launch. The second launch was a repeat of the first mission, which did successfully dock with the ISS.
A good reminder to take all reddit comments with a grain of salt. Some people can’t even be trusted to watch a stream/video of the correct launch before “contributing.”
Star liner is purpose built for low earth orbit as part of the commercial crew contract. Specifically missions to the ISS for crew and cargo
Any Boeing reps pass out from holding their breath during launch?
Launch is not a concern. The launch vehicle is a known quantity.
The holding-my-breath moment will be EDL given the issues with the heat shield.
well i missed this. any way to get notifications for important launches like this one?
Nextspaceflight is a website that lists all upcoming launches and I think you can subscribe for notifications. They may have an app as well. There's definitely apps out there for it.
As an aside, starship flight 4 is tomorrow morning (June 6th) at 8 am EDT. In case you've missed that news as well.
thank you. yeah i focused too much on IFT-4 and forgot about starliner
I use the Supercluster app to keep an eye on things, and it's good about announcing both future launches and imminent ones via notifications.
There is the Next Spaceflight app which was made by the people that run the NasaSpaceflight YouTube channel.
Well, I’ve been one for a few years saying they should just shit can the whole Starliner program.
So I’m here to say it……well fucking done with the hard work and persistence. Here’s to a wholly successful mission that fully proves out another vehicle for the US!
To Boeings credit I didn't see a single part fall off. Hopefully the computer / guidance / life support systems remain functional long enough to complete the mission.
Absolutely. The mission isn't successful until the crew is safely back on the ground.
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1mo
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1mo
HELL YEAH.
So proud of every person that had a hand in making it possible for our country to have two completely independent spacecraft available at the same time. That's just amazing to me:)
It may take them forever, but Boeing gets it done eventually. Congrats Boeing and NASA!
Congrats to the massive team of people who made this possible. The one thing I am wondering about though are the economics of this. Will it survive the market with Space X as a much cheaper competitor?
Boeing can't afford for it to survive beyond their contractual obligations with NASA.
They had a few issues with the RCS thrusters (some of them are still offline), but they will proceed with the docking with the ISS.
Boeing, eh? I might be feeling rapidly intensifying concern if I was one of those Astronauts right about now.
Ah yes Boeing exactly who you want talking you to space.
With enough time and money ULA can do anything. Just don't expect it to be at a reasonable cost or timely.
didnt stay awake for that one since I thought it would have been scrub again (stayed awake long for the try before..)
Well thats how you lose viewers ^^
You didn't miss much really. It was a good launch, but SpaceX has spoiled us with the quality of their footage. It was mostly animations.
Can’t wait for the doors to fall off outside of the atmosphere
I noticed that Atlas V did a roll after launch to zero out azimuth. SpaceX's Falcon 9 did not have to do this.
In florida on the space coast. Can confirm that it did not lose a door on the way up.
theres still the way back tho
Obviously good news, but isn't it just obsolete with Orion?
No, this is a smaller deal akin to Dragon
Orion was designed for Moon trips and is way overkill and expensive for simple trips to ISS.
Yes, but as far as I know (correct me if I am wrong), there will be no ISS. The next big project will be the international Artemis. Which includes the lunar gateway.
Lunar gateway won't exist for quite some time, the next Artemis mission is a manned lunar flyby, assuming they don't decide to refly Orion after heat shield changes (they probably won't, but if I don't say this someone will reply about it). Probably after ISS and before lunar gateway there will be a commercial space station ready, but it's unclear if Boeing will fly this capsule there.
NASA is planning/hoping to replace the ISS with multiple private space stations. Some of which are already planned to be launched this decade (like Axiom Station, Starlab, Haven-1, or Orbital Reef).
After the ISS is retired, it's expected that one or more commercial space stations will be launched in low-earth orbit.
You are correct that Orion will take crews to and from Lunar Gateway :)
Starliner is the same age as Dragon. It's just as advanced as Dragon is. It's a completely new system. Nothing reused from previous systems. Orion isn't obsolete either. It's been upgraded several times throughout its design lifetime since 2004. Its "Callisto" navigation and computer system on Artemis 1 was a huge upgrade compared to how it was in 2008 or 2009. Every several years Orion got upgrades to keep up with technological advancement in the surrounding world during its development hell. The only other things they could add to Orion at this point is landing airbags (like Starliner and Mengzhou, and like Orion originally planned to have) and a reentry cover over its docking hatch. I think it now has a touchscreen with the Callisto guidance system.
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Congrats to both NASA and Boeing. It’s been a very long road to this point, marked by frustrating issues and delays, but it appears the mission is going as planned thus far.
Space is hard. More diversity in our human launch capabilities is a big step toward a bright future for space exploration and wishing those involved the best of success through the rest of the mission.