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llamacoffee

NASA says it is “evaluating all options” for the safe return of Starliner crew (arstechnica.com)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by llamacoffee to c/[email protected]

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One informed source said it was greater than a 50-50 chance that the crew would come back on Dragon. Another source said it was significantly more likely than not they would. To be clear, NASA has not made a final decision. This probably will not happen until at least next week. It is likely that Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator, will make the call.

Asked if it was now more likely than not that Starliner's crew would return on Dragon, NASA spokesperson Josh Finch told Ars on Thursday evening, " NASA is evaluating all options for the return of agency astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the International Space Station as safely as possible. No decisions have been made and the agency will continue to provide updates on its planning."

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (3 children)

A couple weeks ago, it seemed like they had tested the thruster system both on orbit and on the ground, and things were going well. Have they discovered a more serious issue?

[–] clothes 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I was firmly in the "nothing is actually wrong and the media coverage is silly" camp, so this report is pretty shocking.

If there are real engineering reasons (as opposed to anxious bureaucrat ones) that Dragon needs to rescue them, this seems like one of the bigger crises in the modern era?

Will wait for more details, but clearly I was wrong about media coverage!

[–] Avatar_of_Self 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Dragon needs to rescue them, this seems like one of the bigger crises in the modern era?

Just to remind everyone, it wasn't that long ago after NASA managers tried everything to minimize investigation findings and didn't bother telling the crew that there was an issue:

The astronauts also likely suffered from significant thermal trauma. Hot gas entered the disintegrating crew module, burning the crew members, whose bodies were still somewhat protected by their ACES suits. Once the crew module fell apart, the astronauts were violently exposed to windblast and a possible shock wave, which stripped their suits from their bodies. The crews' remains were exposed to hot gas and molten metal as they fell away from the orbiter.

After separation from the crew module, the bodies of the crew members entered an environment with almost no oxygen, very low atmospheric pressure, and both high temperatures caused by deceleration, and extremely low ambient temperatures. Their bodies hit the ground with lethal force.

[–] jqubed 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

After repeated firings of the thruster it started behaving similar to the ones in orbit. Disassembling the thruster they found a teflon seal in the poppet valve that feeds the nitrogen tetroxide into the thruster had deformed and actually bulged out, disrupting the flow of oxidizer.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/nasa-nears-decision-on-what-to-do-with-boeings-troubled-starliner-spacecraft/

[–] clothes 3 points 5 months ago

I wonder how predictable the thrust reduction is. I would have thought they could account for this in software, but maybe there's too much uncertainty. Or perhaps ground tests showed the seal can fail in dangerous ways.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

they didn't even test the thrusters on the ground wtf

[–] jqubed 2 points 5 months ago

Why would you need to test things when you’re Boeing? You know what you’re doing!

[–] pennomi 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

My bet is that the capsule stayed in orbit far longer than it should, and they’ve lost pressure to leaks or they discovered something else that didn’t age well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

Interesting hypothesis. I hope NASA release more info soon.

[–] halcyoncmdr -5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

But there were commenters here on lemmy telling anyone talking about that possibility at the time that the leaks weren't an issue. That even if it were, it would take 14+ weeks until it even started to possibly be an issue at the leak rate. But that wasn't even a factor because the valves were closed, so there weren't any current leaks.

They couldn't possibly have been wrong could they?

[–] pennomi 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You care far too much about some random person on the internet being wrong. I see multiple comments on just this article.

That being said, I think trusting official word from NASA is far more sensible than speculation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I don't think it's just about random wrong internet person. Anyone saying something other than 'it's nothing' was borderline ridiculed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The important part is that you found a way to be smug about a dangerous situation

[–] halcyoncmdr 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

There is absolutely no danger related to this situation unless Boeing/NASA insist on using Starliner without being certain there won't be more issues.

Starliner won't be used if they aren't absolutely certain they can fly it back safely. And there is already a proven vehicle available to rescue the crew if necessary. This is a side effect of having multiple companies create launch vehicles post-Shuttle. If one design has an issue, there's another available to use instead while they figure that out.