Boeing won't fix leaky Starliner before flying first crew to ISS - The vessel, under development since 2010, has been plagued by technical problems and has yet to fulfill its purpose of ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station, allowing Boeing's rival SpaceX to zoom ahead with its Crew Dragon capsule.

Starliner was supposed to fly astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS on May 6, but the mission was scrubbed hours before lift-off after a faulty valve was discovered on the United Launch Alliance rocket carrying it.

Boeing is set to launch its first crewed space mission in June without fixing a small helium gas leak on its troubled Starliner spaceship, officials said Friday.

The vessel, under development since 2010, has been plagued by technical problems and has yet to fulfill its purpose of ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station, allowing Boeing's rival SpaceX to zoom ahead with its Crew Dragon capsule.

Starliner was supposed to finally fly astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the orbital outpost on May 6, but the mission was scrubbed hours before lift-off after a faulty valve was discovered on the United Launch Alliance rocket carrying it.

Since then, additional issues came to light, including a helium leak in the spacecraft's service module, which houses the propulsion system.

But while the rocket valve has been replaced, Boeing and NASA have made the decision to fly to the ISS without replacing a shirt button-sized seal on a leaking joint, officials told reporters.

"We can handle this particular leak if that leak rate were to grow even up to 100 times," said Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Moreover, it impacts just one of a set of 28 thrusters used to control the spaceship's attitude, he added.

tor the leak during the hours before launch, scheduled for June 1 at 12:25 pm (1625 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Asked why Boeing wouldn't just replace the seal, Mark Nappi, the company's vice president for the commercial crew program, said the process would be "quite involved" and require taking apart Starliner at its factory.

Stich added that it wasn't unheard of to fly with leaks—space shuttles encountered similar problems at times, "and we've had a couple of cases with Dragon where we've had a few small leaks as well," he added.

The much-delayed mission comes at a challenging time for Boeing, as a safety crisis engulfs the century-old aerospace titan's commercial aviation arm.

NASA is banking on Starliner's success in order to achieve its goal of certifying a second commercial vehicle to carry crews to the ISS, which it has sought since the last space shuttle flew in 2011.

A successful mission would help dispel the bitter taste left by numerous setbacks in the Starliner program.

In 2019, during a first uncrewed test flight, a software defect meant the capsule failed to rendezvous with the ISS. A second software bug could have caused a catastrophic collision between its modules, but was caught and fixed just in time.

Then in 2021, with the rocket on the launchpad for a new flight, blocked valves forced another postponement.

The vessel finally reached the ISS in May 2022 in a non-crewed launch. But other problems including weak parachutes and flammable tape in the cabin that needed to be removed caused further delays to the crewed test.

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[JustSomeDong]

Boeings corporate slogan should be DEI or die trying.

 

[WonderWino]

Since then, additional issues came to light, including a helium leak in the spacecraft's service module, which houses the propulsion system.

If this thing explodes and kills everybody boeing is going to end up getting sued into utter oblivion by the crews family members. They know theres a serious leak, advertised it publicly and said they would go through with the flight anyway

If this is the attitude they take toward spacecraft why the fuck would anyone even consider getting on a boeing manufactured plane at this point?

Anyone willing to get on board this thing is asking for a darwin award and deserves whatever they get. How the fuck is this even being allowed to happen? The feds allow them to launch a rocket they know is leaking? It isn't a good look for making you wonder what else the feds might be letting slide in, say, the aviation industry

 

[Hitman One]

If this thing explodes and kills everybody boeing is going to end up getting sued into utter oblivion by the crews family members. They know theres a serious leak, advertised it publicly and said they would go through with the flight anyway

If this is the attitude they take toward spacecraft why the fuck would anyone even consider getting on a boeing manufactured plane at this point?

Anyone willing to get on board this thing is asking for a darwin award and deserves whatever they get. How the fuck is this even being allowed to happen? The feds allow them to launch a rocket they know is leaking? It isn't a good look for making you wonder what else the feds might be letting slide in, say, the aviation industry

Boeing can do whatever they want because they know the federal government will protect them. Not just because of their civilian deathtrap section providing huge number of jobs, but because they make and maintain so much weaponry and kit for the military.

 

[Cpl. Long Dong Silver]

Nah, it is known risk vs unknown risk.

They understand the nature of the problem and have refunand systems to deal with it.

The unknown is taking apart the capsule and putting it back together.

So in this case a small helium leak is far less concerning than destacking, tearing it apart, inspecting everything, and potentially inducing an unknown risk into the system.

Why not just I dunno...patch the leak?

Shouldn't NASA have some space age shit?

 

[Bland Crumbs]

Yeah...

I miss the space shuttle…

I doubt you will like the reboot as much as the original!

 

[Yourmissingsock]

If this thing explodes and kills everybody boeing is going to end up getting sued into utter oblivion by the crews family members. They know theres a serious leak, advertised it publicly and said they would go through with the flight anyway

If this is the attitude they take toward spacecraft why the fuck would anyone even consider getting on a boeing manufactured plane at this point?

Anyone willing to get on board this thing is asking for a darwin award and deserves whatever they get. How the fuck is this even being allowed to happen? The feds allow them to launch a rocket they know is leaking? It isn't a good look for making you wonder what else the feds might be letting slide in, say, the aviation industry

Ah helium, the famously combustible gas.

Do you understand what system on the spacecraft is leaking?

 

[Yourmissingsock]

Why not just I dunno...patch the leak?

Shouldn't NASA have some space age shit?

If your engine has a slow oil leak that isn't impacting performance do you rip the whole engine apart to fix it or just top up the oil?

This is effectively the situation here.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

"We can handle this particular leak if that leak rate were to grow even up to 100 times,"

I bet the leak will grow 200 times.

 

[Maldron the Assassin]

I get not wanting to fix it because if you have to disassemble other parts to get to it and then reassemble everything, you've introduced the possibility of even more potential errors.

 

[WelperHelper99]

If your engine has a slow oil leak that isn't impacting performance do you rip the whole engine apart to fix it or just top up the oil?

This is effectively the situation here.

That's what it seems. Look i know a thing or two about machines, shocking. This sounds minor. It shouldn't be there, but in terms of what COULD be leaking, such as the oxygen, which is highly combustible... it's probably fine. They have 28 of these thrusters. One is leaking. If it fails they are fine. It has low to no risk of exploding because its helium. Tearing apart the craft might cause more problems, because you will be ripping apart welds and all sorts of shit that isn't supposed to come apart, depending how deep the leak is. It might just be wiser to leave it.

Politically on the other hand this is absolutely unacceptable. This is absolutely terrible for Boeing.

 

[Johann Bacha Bazi]

I'm not sure if it's a fatal problem or not, as I have no expertise in this area, but I would like to suggest crewing the Starliner exclusively with journalists and schoolteachers just in case.

 

[Fatsuit Shinji]

Not at all, challenger was someone making a call where the risks were not understood on critical hardware.

Even for the Challenger, people known there's maybe problems and wanted to dely the launch. But the bean counting bureaucratic TPTB at NASA and their overlords higher up the food chain wanted their publicity launch to happen now.

We lost the Columbia in 2003 because TPTB had years earlier switched the foam that is on the rockets to a more environmentally friendier one. That just so happens to hit the tiles on the shuttles with such force to damage them during launch. So it wad just a matter of when it goes from damaged but still good tiles to then being effectively destroyed as they were on the Columbia. Coupled with NASA not having the Columbia reorient itself so iirc the Hubble space telescope iirc can do a damage assessment and go from there.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

from damaged but still good tiles to then being effectively destroyed as they were on the Columbia.

iirc the heat tiles were one of the really big "secret sauce" parts of the shuttles, like, that Russian knock-off had to replace the entire fucking underside each re-entry but ours were more, "check for cracks, we're good to go"

 

[desudesu]

Wow can't believe we are in for the sequel to the submarine implosion this quick!

 

[geckogoy]

Its not necessarily uncommon to dismiss a minor issue and launch anyhow, and a slight inert gas leak could be construed as that.

 

[Fatsuit Shinji]

iirc the heat tiles were one of the really big "secret sauce" parts of the shuttles, like, that Russian knock-off had to replace the entire fucking underside each re-entry but ours were more, "check for cracks, we're good to go"

Old ass "secret sauce" as the U.S. space program have been using them ever since it been putting shit and people into space with the expectation of them returning back to Earth unscathed. The "check for cracks" bit is the opposite as any crack found on a tile meant that tile had to be replaced. As it is potentially structurally compromised and was too great a risk back when NASA was ran by engineers.

 

[Vecr]

Old ass "secret sauce" as the U.S. space program have been using them ever since it been putting shit and people into space with the expectation of them returning back to Earth unscathed. The "check for cracks" bit is the opposite as any crack found on a tile meant that tile had to be replaced. As it is potentially structurally compromised and was too great a risk back when NASA was ran by engineers.

Only the return gliders were ever reusable without replacing the heat shield, in Apollo they used phenolic resin heat shields, called ablative because they disintegrate partially during reentry. In theory the tiles SpaceX uses on the Starship are better, but they are falling off at a much higher rate than on the shuttles so far. I can believe "secret sauce" at this point.

 

[Grub]

It doesn't help there's no explanation as to why there's so much urgency to launch before fixing this issue. I assume it must be something where the risk of doing so outweighs the benefit.

At least they said it up front, I guess.

I would guess money. It would cost a fair bit I imagine to delay the launch, transport the rocket back, strip everything down, put it back together then transport it back to the launch site. What I don't understand is why they wouldn't have been leak tested prior to being put in a state where the only option is to strip it down. Usually when you're dealing with high pressure gasses you test the shit out of everything before you actually fill it with gas.

 

[Snekposter]

Even for the Challenger, people known there's maybe problems and wanted to dely the launch. But the bean counting bureaucratic TPTB at NASA and their overlords higher up the food chain wanted their publicity launch to happen now.

Yep. People at the manufacturer refused to sign off on the launch after the problems were noted until NASA got them on a direct call to browbeat them into signing off on the flight's safety.

 

[Fatsuit Shinji]

Only the return gliders were ever reusable without replacing the heat shield, in Apollo they used phenolic resin heat shields, called ablative because they disintegrate partially during reentry. In theory the tiles SpaceX uses on the Starship are better, but they are falling off at a much higher rate than on the shuttles so far. I can believe "secret sauce" at this point.

I could've swore everything whether heat shields and tiles were ablative by default due to the temperatures during reentry.