Starliner Reaches Orbit Despite Thruster Problems, ISS Docking Set for Friday
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner uncrewed spacecraft reached orbit after launch from Florida on Thursday on its way to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) despite problems with two of its 12 thrusters, officials said. The flight test is a crucial step to certifying Starliner to carry crew to the station.
Boeing Vice President Mark Nappi said a Starliner thruster failed after firing for one second as the spacecraft made a burn to enter orbit after separating from its Atlas V launch vehicle. The flight software switched to a second thruster, which fired for 25 seconds before shutting down prematurely. A third thruster took over and completed the firing, Nappi said.
Despite the thruster failures, Nappi and NASA officials said the anomalies should not affect the plan to dock Starliner with the ISS on Friday at 7:10 p.m. EDT.
Steve Sich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said engineers are working to determine why the thrusters failed and whether they can be restored to function. Sich added that a sublimator that releases water vapor to cool the spacecraft performed sluggishly during ascent but worked as designed once the spacecraft reached orbit.
Problems with the thrusters, which are manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne, forced the postponement of an August launch attempt after 13 valves used in Starliner’s propulsion system failed to open on the launch pad. It’s not clear whether stuck valves were the cause of the thruster failures during Thursday’s flight.
The flight marks the second attempt by Starliner to dock with the space station. The first flight in December 2019 entered orbit, but it was unable to reach ISS due to software and communications problems. It flew an abbreviated two-day flight before landing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
If this mission is successful, NASA astronauts will conduct a flight test of Starliner to the space station.
49 responses to “Starliner Reaches Orbit Despite Thruster Problems, ISS Docking Set for Friday”
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Go Boeing, go Starliner, go NASA. Congrats to all involved.
it is essentially a textbook flight. the thruster issue is a non event.
Ad Astra Starliner (I had my Starliner T shirt on under my flight suit yesterday. we got down in time to see the launch. First launch I have watched in years 🙂
More than one thruster. And those hypergolic thrusters are among the simplest and most reliable of all spacecraft components. I have to disagree and state this is flag.
its just two. and its probably some very conservative temp limits
I will go with that. Anything to break the spacex monopoly. Almost anything.
Jeesh. After all that time checking, still having issues with the thrusters? A bit disappointing, Boeing.
Well, it’s safely in orbit. Hopefully Starliner gets through the rest of the flight with no major issues, is certified and truly safe, and then we can move on to having another operational crew transport vehicle
They worked the problem and that counts. While a perfect mission would be nice, an acceptable mission is good enough. Problems that can be worked with should be expected, but attention must be focused on making sure that it doesn’t get out of hand. I waffle on this one because I don’t know where the line is drawn, or where it should be drawn.
Yeah, sure, it’s a test flight; some hiccups are to be expected. But they were just working on the thrusters specifically for 10 months
AIUI any more fail thruster from that particular cluster make reentry much more challenging. Hopefully Boeing can recovered the fail thrusters.
It is still a question mark if the RCS thrusters can last 6 months in orbit, OFT-2 flight duration of about a week isn’t long enough to determine long duration thruster serviceability.
I expected that Boeing is going to go with its option for redesigning the value system after this flight.
they have on other spacecraft they have lasted for years.
If the Starliner thruster system is the same as previous iterations, then there shouldn’t be issues. However it seems they are not quite the same and Boeing isn’t sure what is causing the issues..
I dont think that the docking is in any way in peril. I dont speak for anyone but myself on private media. but it seems pretty manageable. and the fault detection system worked as advertised
AIUI docking will be trickier but manageable. I only mention “reentry much more challenging”, nothing about docking.
Yes. Phantom Works obviously knows how to make valves that can last in space. Perhaps the Starliner people ought to go, cap-in-hand, to the X-37B guys and ask for a short course on space-rated valve design. Or is that sort of thing simply not done at Boeing?
It is the year 2022, we send unmanned probes to Pluto….and we can’t send a supposedly human-rated capsule a couple hundred miles up without problems? No excuses. It should have been perfect. Boeing is one of the major aerospace companies on the planet. Boeing has some very serious work culture problems. After the first year in the history of aviation with no commercial airline disasters (2017) the industry walked back their oversight and cut corners and airliners falling out the sky was the result. This is really not much different than the Space Shuttle or Crew Dragon though. All these programs suffer in a ex-cold-war-aerospace-arena that has always had mountains of money thrown at it without the expectation of delivery of any kind of perfect outcome. The Apollo 1 fire forced aerospace to do it right under draconian oversight. Apollo succeeded but the oversight ended with Apollo 17. And that kind of oversight is the only solution.
In an interview with NPR, Cynthia Cole, who worked at Boeing as an engineer for 32 years says that the company’s safety-first culture initially started to shift after Boeing bought their rival McDonnell Douglas in 1997, worsening in the last decade. In fact, “greater emphasis on maximizing profits over safety caused all kinds of problems as the company developed the 787 Dreamliner, which ended up three years behind schedule and billions over budget.”
“As a result, this has lead to the creation of a toxic company culture with employees whose voices remain unheard.”
Having commented on these forums for several years I am completely familiar with groups of toxic creeps shutting down any differing opinions. Oh yes. This is NewSpace culture influencing and corroding an entire field of endeavor. The profit motive is poison to space exploration.
There is no cheap.
It’s a hoot to see the general public talk about boeing as if it’s a groping, rearded child burning money for heat on a beach in the Cayman Is.
If I were those guys I would cancel starliner. Congress is paying up front for war with the other half of ISS, so that’s over soon.
I’m not sure what they’re going to do with starliner otherwise. I know there is the commercial fantasy, but they need a few more tons of pixie dust to make that happen.
Boeing has indeed had a string of unfortunate news over the last few years so it’s understandable. Boeing need to invest in some PR to reverse its image.
Yes, Starliner’s only market is the ISS and with the years of delay that Starliner has had the number of flights available to the ISS will be limited.
I was defending them for many years on the principle that their efforts could be shifted away from the dod munitions trucking stuff and into bigger civilian space programs.
Something like NASP, or a Moon program with a human lander. Hard-core airliner programs like 787, 777X…
Now spacex, they’re running the distributed communications and navigation system in the birth arena of this war. Tough to shoot that down. Rural internet customer indeed!
So nobody is really on the side that I always had hoped for.
It seems you are not a fan of those “rough men willing to do violence on your behalf.” My late father having been one of them, I have a rather different view.
Yes, Starliner’s only market is the ISS and with the years of delay that Starliner has had the number of flights available to the ISS will be limited.”
Dragon has no market either other than the government. If NASA pulled its money; the other flights would end
The ISS should have ended in 2016 as originally schedulel and all efforts focused on a lunar return and establishing a permanent cislunar human presence.
If Dragon “has no market other than the government” then what are those “other flights” you also mention? You’re beginning to sound entirely too much like Root Vegetable Joe.
There are limits to what PR can do. Boeing needs to seriously invest in ceasing to fuck up.
There is no commercial use case for Starliner currently, It is just too expensive.
Plus Boeing only have enough Atlas V launchers to cover the ISS flights. Any other flights need a new launcher, which is either the non man-rated Vulcan Centaur that has not flown yet or the Falcon 9. Boeing have to pay for man-rating the Starliner to either. A lot for the Vulcan Centaur or a little for the Falcon 9.
Ironically launching the Starliner on the Falcon 9 is cheaper than the current Soyuz price per seat.
Ita not falcon centaur starliner. It’s falcon falcon upper stage starliner. All the avionics are in the second stage.
Still, they have sls, x37, delta iv. I’d cut that starliner program loose. It just doesn’t have a future.
Neither does dragon. People think commercial space can duplicate iss, I don’t know why.
Vulcan is for real. So is centaur v. People don’t understand; the gratuitous spending, you get the functionality and reliability.
Like webb, sls is not going to fail. Vulcan is being built by the same crowd. I bet money it never fails, like delta iv.
The Falcon 9 have separate avionics in the Falcon 9 core and the upper stage. The core require separate flight controls for landing attempts.
The only reason why the Vulcan Centaur have a business case is the big Amazon Kuiper buy. Even then there have to be fligthworthy BE-4 engines from Blue Origin for Vulcan Centaur to be real.
The Delta IV family’s launch prices was not sustainable if there is 2 other alternatives, hence its early retirement.
Yes, but the core can not lift a centaur. The booster needs the avionics In the second stage.
Vulcan is for dod missions, that’s their business case. I don’t know about that contract for so many launches being real, or it surviving to maturity.
The spacex network is good enough for dod. It can’t be shot down. Why bother having two?
I guess it could be the pentagon dealing with financial risk. Like if spacex goes bankrupt or something like that happens.
Delta iv was mega safe, but they did that in response to the 90’s.
There are a lot of avionics in both Starliner and Dragon 2. Hell, there were avionics in the Mercury capsules.
Delta IV is not Boeing’s, it’s ULA’s. And it’s over, except for a handful of Heavies.
SLS is not long for this world and will never get near any other.
X-37B will fly until USAF doesn’t want it anymore. But it flies so infrequently, that it hardly qualifies as a business by itself.
Once again, you have Boeing mixed up with ULA. ULA is building Vulcan. Boeing is building SLS – except for the Block 1 2nd stage which is being built by ULA. Whether SLS fails in service is pretty much irrelevant. It’s too expensive, too production-limited and entirely expendable. Starship will kill it without working up a sweat.
Vulcan is being built by ULA with main engines from Blue Origin. So… not the same crowd. Maybe it won’t fail and maybe it will. It’s a new rocket. Atlas V’s and Delta IV’s histories don’t really enter into things. At least the Kuiper contract gives ULA a fighting chance of launching more Vulcans than it ever did Delta IVs.
I am with you Gordon. ULA has a perfect record. Unlike spacex.
Boeing will only launch the Starliner on Falcon 9 if forced to by NASA. Basically it has become just a backup option for ISS, assuming it’s current flight is successful.
Not optional. NASA have firm contracts for 6 operational Starliner flights to the ISS. However don’t see additional Starliner flights beyond the 6 operational flights and the CFT crewed test flight.
Unless Bezos decides to use it for Orbital Reef – assuming there ever is an Orbital Reef.
There is no commercial use case for Starliner currently, It is just too expensive.”
there is no commercial case for any operator SpaceX or Boeing for human spaceflight. The government is picking up the tab for vehicle development, if that had to be folded into the current flight rate the cost would climb substantially.
even with that exception the current flight rate is not allowing anyone really to “make money” . Its pretty clear that SpaceX isnt making any money off the Axiom and other flights…
there is no business case for human spaceflight
That is correct….there is no ROI on Human Space Flight. Which is why I stated the obvious; the profit motive is poison to space exploration.
It’s hardly clear to me – or to almost everyone else – that “SpaceX isn’t making any money off the Axiom and other flights.” You’ve been a Democrat for too long. You really believe that your personal declaration can change reality.
ok fine. . I have three successful business and its clear to me 🙂 see who is right RGO
Yes…”ironically” the spacex fanboy is saying Starliner is too expensive and the Falcon 9 is the solution. Who woulda thought?
Falcon 9 is the only other NASA man-rated launcher. Really don’t see Boeing paying for man-rating the Vulcan Centaur themselves.
They will have to glue pixie dust to every square inch of that 4 billion dollar a year hole in LEO.
ISS without Russians will not be an end, it will be an improvement.
Perhaps Bezos can supply the needed pixie dust – after he finishes sprinkling it all over New Glenn and Orbital Reef that is.
Bezos is working on a second starlink. That’s nav/com systems for military that can’t be shot down. Once the US and Rusiia are firing on eachother directly, both will shoot all the big satellites. That’s what starlink is.
That’s why they’re launching with that pace, buying fleets of vulcan. They’re not a bunch of hard working entrepreneurs that see a market in rural internet. They’re doing a lucrative dod contract to defend against anti-satellite weapons.
All the talk of vertical rapid iteration is cover, like searching for titanic, but getting thresher and scorpion first withilout yelling anyone.
Iss is going to be like apollo. People looking back on it knowing it can’t be done again.
The irony on you people is that your only hope for any manned spaceflight at all is Sls, Orion, the European service module and gateway. Any of those parts fail and the highest you’re going is 42 thousand feet.
It is a scam….”once the US and Russia are firing on each other-“
It will escalate so rapidly we will both launch everything.
Mutually Assured Destruction.
In an interview with NPR, Cynthia Cole, who worked at Boeing as an engineer for 32 years says that the company’s safety-first culture initially started to shift after Boeing bought their rival McDonnell Douglas in 1997, worsening in the last decade. In fact, “greater emphasis on maximizing profits over safety caused all kinds of problems as the company developed the 787 Dreamliner, which ended up three years behind schedule and billions over budget.”
that is just utter bull. OK I work for the company but in my present guise only since mid last year.
her arguments are so weak…and for Turkish I was one of the main technical pilots on Max acquisition. she has no idea what she is talking about none RGO
My only guide beside your view Robert is the Boeing engineer I observed verbally abusing his elderly father in a Seattle emergency room one night because he had to get back to work- on the Dreamliner. And two airliners falling out of the sky is also a hint that Boeing actually did maximize profits over safety. And the 787 problems are well documented.
Curtis Ewbank, who worked on flight deck systems for the 737 Max for five years, claims that Boeing hid crucial safety data from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) after they found evidence of a fault in the 737 Max’s autothrottle system. He tried to pass this evidence on to a Boeing manager, only to be told to “not tell EASA” and that Boeing “would fix the issue ourselves.” To add to this, he stated that “his Boeing colleagues are frightened to flag-up safety concerns through “fear for their jobs” and, having blown the whistle on Boeing himself, that he is now fully aware that career repercussions may follow.”
A safety concern I identified in the military and went up the chain of command with was swept under the carpet and I felt I had no choice but to go along with it. There was an incident. I have to live with that. It did not seem to bother my superiors at all.
There have been zero changes in the autothrottle system since the -300 advanced models. the change there was the new tie in when they replaced the autopilot system computer
” And two airliners falling out of the sky is also a hint that Boeing actually did maximize profits over safet”
how? an equal or greater number of Airbus have “fallen out of the sky” with automation issue that the crew dealt with badly so how?
I was a troubleshooter on autopilot systems many years ago so I have a good understanding of how they work. But I know zero about how it works on that airplane and would never argue with a pilot about it. But….
What I have read is they stuck those big engines on it and they were too big so they had to extend them forward which screwed up all the CG limits and programming and somewhere in that software is what killed all those people. This is not 1959 (about the year I was born) and they were not trying to figure out whirl mode on the Lockheed Electra. No excuse.
I have to believe that kind of problem was reported and should have been prevented from killing people and it was not- because of concerns about losing money. It is not unusual for executives to gamble with peoples lives because they think they will not suffer any consequences. Nobody is going to jail for it…are they?
This vehicle has been launched twice. The first time there were 80 major problems. The second time initially there were 2 different major problems. How many different problems are there going to be the third time this vehicle is launched. The Starliner needs to be used as a cargo vehicle until Boeing gets the kinks worked out.
I cannot believe that Boeing would have launched Starliner if they could have gotten the remaining valves working. That shows a poor safety protocol.