They said after the first leak that it wasn’t an issue since they calculated that it would take 4 leaks of that size to disable the thruster system. Now they have 3.
I hope we didn’t assume the odds of each leak was an independent event. Same failure mode and maybe we have uncovered something systemic! Kind of scary
Since the cause of the first leak was a defective rubber seal, it would have made sense to replace all of them. I’m pretty sure they didn’t use different types of seals on each thruster port. But for that, they would have had to disassemble the spacecraft and that would have taken too long for the available launch windows.
It’s a good thing rubber seals have never caused any problems in spaceflight
At least the front didn’t fall off.
It’s truly out of the environment now, though.
Particularly embarrassing considering the incredible progress SpaceX is making, including today’s launch and successful splashdown of both starship and the booster. The entry was wild, too - one of the fins burned halfway off, but the damn thing still worked fine lol
Maybe they’ll put a Starliner in the cargo bay of the next Starship launch.
Lmao that would be goddamn priceless. Even if it was just an external mockup with ballast to simulate full mission mass of the capsule… Jesus, that would be an absolutely hilarious amount of shade for them to throw.
You gotta be fuckin kidding me. How could they launch this thing?
“Well, some of them are built so that the front doesn’t fall off at all.” 🤣
Because Boeing has evidently become a “safety third” sort of company over the last several decades
Better question is, why did NASA let them
I’m sitting down, waiting for Scott Manley’s analysis video to drop. I’d hope there are valid and sane reasons why they thought it should go ahead, but something like this was so obviously going to happen.
AFAIK helium is only used to prepare the fuel and oxidizer lines for burns and to backfill propellant tanks. Liquid propellant has to be kept extremely far below zero and if the lines aren’t 1, down to apropriate temperatures and 2, clear of anything that isnt rocket fuel it can cause some serious damage so helium is a purging gas. Also as the propellant is used they have to keep the fuel tanks pressurized with helium to maintain a higher pressure upstream of the engine. You dont want an engine to burn backwards.
That being said, this mission wasnt slated to take extremely long or be particularly complex (im aware oribital mechanics are by default complex but its just a mission to and from the ISS, no midflight reconfigurations like the saturn missions).
Mission control is full of engineers who know this rocket better than anyone else ever will. If they had reason to believe a small complication isnt worth worrying about we have no choice but to believe them. There are so many systems in place for a rocket launch, there has to be some wiggle room in terms of non critical systems and issues. Its kind of a morbid fact that if we dont launch until it’s 100% perfect nothing would leave florida.
I want to believe you’re right, but I also assume these leaks are just what we know about and there’s 100 other “minor” things that could turn this thing into a fireball. Guess we’ll find out soon.
Theres no reason to assume that. I also hate boeing with everything thats going on right now but I trust NASA to be responsible with peoples lives. Also, with this as well as the cost of this spacecraft I dont see boeing getting much more government money here. Starliner cost roughly double that of the dragon. Just not worth it.
Probably because they were contractually obligated. Nasa and Boeing entered into their agreement in 2019 when SpaceX was making headlines for reusable rockets and the Starship announcement. Boeing had FOMO they might miss out on government money so they made their own rockets with blackjack and hookers. Sadly, now Boeing is working hard to keep up while also trying to not kill more people with their “flying” machines.
I’ll leave this Screenshot of an exchange I had a few weeks ago. A couple of replies were giving a soft defense of Boeing:
