![]() ![]() During the briefing, Stich pointed out that Starliner had performed a second significant burn with the same OMAC thrusters, putting it on course to rendezvous with the International Space Station. Nappi emphasized that the issue was not one that needed to be resolved prior to the completion of the OFT-2 mission. Now the team is working the 'why' as to why we had those anomalies occur," said Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for Boeing’s commercial crew program. "The system is designed to be redundant, and it performed like it was supposed to. NASA reassigns 2 astronauts from Boeing's Starliner to SpaceX's Crew Dragon Boeing to launch 2nd test flight of Starliner spacecraft for NASA on May 19 Boeing's 1st Starliner flight test in photos The two OMAC thrusters that malfunctioned, and the third that stepped in to compensate, were all in the same doghouse on Starliner’s aft section, Boeing representatives said. The Boeing spacecraft is outfitted with four of these thruster groups on its aft section, referred to in industry nomenclature as "doghouses," which each contain three orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) thrusters used to perform significant maneuver burns like those that achieve orbital insertion. Redundancy failsafes activated a tertiary backup for the thruster group, and Starliner was able to complete the crucial burn without incident. Its backup immediately kicked on and was able to fire for another 25 seconds before it also failed. As he listed the hurdles and launch milestones of the day’s events, he also mentioned one small Starliner malfunction.ĭuring the spacecraft’s orbital insertion burn, which occurred 31 minutes after liftoff, two of Starliner’s thrusters didn’t fire as expected. "Today was just a huge day for commercial crew," said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. OFT-2's liftoff was a big milestone for ULA as well, marking the 150th launch for the rocket company, which is a joint effort of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.Īt a post-launch press conference on Thursday night, NASA and Boeing experts were quick to congratulate their various teams for the hard work that led to the successful launch. "Not a great look for NASA, either, as they apparently signed off on bypassing. ![]() "Since the two noted problems occurred at system interfaces, one would have to speculate that there was some weakness in the integrated testing," current panel member Don McErlean told the Sentinel.īoeing wasn't the only one to blame for the newly revealed oversight, as Ars Technica senior space editor Eric Berger pointed out on Twitter. During its first-ever, uncrewed test launch in December, its onboard timing system caused it to never end up at its destination, the International Space Station.Įnsuing investigations found that other software glitches could've nearly caused the December test to end in a "catastrophic failure," according to a February report by NASA's safety review panel. There were certainly gaps in the test protocol." Boeing's Bad Lookīoeing's development of its Starliner spacecraft has been plagued with issues. "That was somewhat surprising to us on the panel. You gotta do that," Christopher Saindon, a retired Navy first officer and pilot, who left the advisory panel earlier this month, told the Sentinel. Members of NASA's safety advisory panel told journalists that such a test is needed to ensure that all software systems respond to each other for every maneuver. NASA has learned that Boeing did not perform a "full, end-to-end integrated test" of its astronaut-ferrying Starliner spacecraft with the rocket that's supposed to launch it into orbit, the United Launch Alliance's Atlas V, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The lack of a critical end-to-end test caught NASA's safety panel off guard. ![]()
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