Boeing and NASA's official statement is that they need to investigate the fault of the thrusters in space because the thrusters are of the service module which will be burnt during reentry.
I wonder (to the point of belive) that the reason is more than that. The service module is to provide deceleration burn and to put the capsule in right reentry angle and velocity. During this time it uses thrusters to adjust the orientation and angle of the combo, the function is like steering wheel of a car travelling in high speed. The failed thrusters aren't in the training of manual control, it couldn't because nobody can predict which and how many can fail. So the astranaut has to manually do some compansation not trained for and run the risk of going too shallow and landing on arbitrary location on earth or too steep and burnt. It is like Sandra Bullock's Dr. Ryan using fire extinguisher to reach Tiangong. The complexity of such action is reflected by the manual docking already which is not part of training since normal manual training does not include undefined failing thrusters.
So I think what actually is happening is that NASA, Boeing and the astranauts are discussing whether they can and dare to return in Starliner if it can not be fully repaired in space which is almost impossible. The official line is a-good-to-have thing for Boeing, but how to get back is the real reason. The delay "stranded" is due to the extra time for rescuers such as SpaceX to produce the unscheduled dragon and falcon 9. The delay is just a bonus for Boeing to figure out what went wrong in the mean time.
I wonder (to the point of belive) that the reason is more than that. The service module is to provide deceleration burn and to put the capsule in right reentry angle and velocity. During this time it uses thrusters to adjust the orientation and angle of the combo, the function is like steering wheel of a car travelling in high speed. The failed thrusters aren't in the training of manual control, it couldn't because nobody can predict which and how many can fail. So the astranaut has to manually do some compansation not trained for and run the risk of going too shallow and landing on arbitrary location on earth or too steep and burnt. It is like Sandra Bullock's Dr. Ryan using fire extinguisher to reach Tiangong. The complexity of such action is reflected by the manual docking already which is not part of training since normal manual training does not include undefined failing thrusters.
So I think what actually is happening is that NASA, Boeing and the astranauts are discussing whether they can and dare to return in Starliner if it can not be fully repaired in space which is almost impossible. The official line is a-good-to-have thing for Boeing, but how to get back is the real reason. The delay "stranded" is due to the extra time for rescuers such as SpaceX to produce the unscheduled dragon and falcon 9. The delay is just a bonus for Boeing to figure out what went wrong in the mean time.
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