There is currently a Soyuz capsule stationed at the ISS for emergencies. The Googles do not say why the Starliner crew cannot use it to return home.
maybe they don’t want to go bouncing across the frozen tundra, but would rather wait until a nice ocean splash down can be had…of course a second thought may be that no US citizen would want to land in Russia right now.
Starliner does a land landing.
There is currently a Soyuz capsule stationed at the ISS for emergencies. The Googles do not say why the Starliner crew cannot use it to return home.
maybe they don’t want to go bouncing across the frozen tundra, but would rather wait until a nice ocean splash down can be had…of course a second thought may be that no US citizen would want to land in Russia right now.
Starliner does a land landing. I did not know that, is it a bump and roll like typical Soyuz? or is it a soft landing?
I think the BBC said that there’s only 2 docking stations which are both being used at present. They have to free one up to do crew rotation i guess and resupply?
I think the BBC said that there’s only 2 docking stations which are both being used at present. They have to free one up to do crew rotation i guess and resupply?
I was curious so I checked the NASA website and according to their facts about the ISS it has 8 docking stations or to quote the site:" Eight spaceships can be connected to the space station at once"
I think the BBC said that there’s only 2 docking stations which are both being used at present. They have to free one up to do crew rotation i guess and resupply?
I was curious so I checked the NASA website and according to their facts about the ISS it has 8 docking stations or to quote the site:" Eight spaceships can be connected to the space station at once"
While you could potentially have 8, of those 8 ports 2 are for berthing. Berthing and docking are different - berthed vehicles include HTV, cargo Dragon, and Cygnus. DreamChaser will be another. Those have passive common berthing mechanisms, and the SSRMS grabs the vehicle and berths it onto the active common berthing mechanism. Docking are associated with crew Dragon, CST-100, and the Russian vehicles (Progress and Soyuz).
Now one of the Russian docking ports is on a module that has some issues. Hatch has been routinely closed and the module depressed.
But on the USOS side there are only 2 docking ports (NDS) and 2 ACBM interfaces for berthing. NDS and PCBM are incompatible.
There is currently a Soyuz capsule stationed at the ISS for emergencies. The Googles do not say why the Starliner crew cannot use it to return home.
maybe they don’t want to go bouncing across the frozen tundra, but would rather wait until a nice ocean splash down can be had…of course a second thought may be that no US citizen would want to land in Russia right now.
Starliner does a land landing. I did not know that, is it a bump and roll like typical Soyuz? or is it a soft landing?
I believe it lands on airbags.
Starliner will be coming home empty on Sept 6th, how much you want to bet it performs perfectly and they could have come back on it after all. LOL
I think that is a very safe bet. The issue is not that it would be safe 1 out of 100 times, but more like 1 in 270 times. There just simply wasn’t anyway to confidently say it would be that safe. It was an easy decision with spacex being available. If spacex wasn’t an option, they would have likely gone home on starliner.
Something I heard recently in an interview is that Boeing is also delaying the return because they’re are trying to figure out why several of the helium thrusters have developed leaks, and that portion of Starliner will be destroyed on reentry so they’re trying to figure it out before they lose that chance. The person making that statement, and I don’t recall who it was, mentioned that they probably will end up bringing the astronauts back on a different vehicle and that Starliner will return uncrewed, but that Boeing is pushing to delay the return as long as they can, or at least until they learn as much as possible while it’s still docked at ISS. Again, I don’t recall who the interviewee was or what specific access/knowledge he has so take the above with that in mind.
Yes, that’s the plan and you’re correct - the broken thrusters won’t be coming back intact, so they might never find out what went wrong, what failed and why
https://futurism.com/the-byte/boeing-starliner-destroy-malfunctioning-thrusters
True, but this is pretty common in the space industry. Most hardware never comes back so almost all failures are determined based on a combination of flight data and lab testing of similar components. Getting failed hardwear back for testing is a luxury we don’t often have.
True, but this is pretty common in the space industry. Most hardware never comes back so almost all failures are determined based on a combination of flight data and lab testing of similar components. Getting failed hardwear back for testing is a luxury we don’t often have.
Plenty of experience there. Years ago I did loads of work on the ISS SARJ anomaly. We were able to get some forensic evidence back, but most was astronaut photos during EVAs and some various instrumentation. Been on several others since then. Always interesting puzzles to solve.
Starliner back on Earth after an apparently flawless return. Crew still on ISS for another four months.
NASA must be tearing their hair out. Let’s hope the next round is equally successful.