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AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
The West believes the stereotype that China doesn’t care about their own people’s wellbeing. I’ve read that China has a backup for everything they do when it comes to space in case there’s a failure or emergency. How come the US doesn’t have any backup? So who’s the one that doesn’t have any concern? Maybe it’s too expensive to have a backup in place.

It just goes to show it’s the US that rushes and makes decisions based on concern for their reputation. Or it’s called saving face as the West likes to claim what Asians are all about like they don’t do it themselves.
 

Michaelsinodef

Senior Member
Registered Member
The West believes the stereotype that China doesn’t care about their own people’s wellbeing. I’ve read that China has a backup for everything they do when it comes to space in case there’s a failure or emergency. How come the US doesn’t have any backup? So who’s the one that doesn’t have any concern? Maybe it’s too expensive to have a backup in place.

It just goes to show it’s the US that rushes and makes decisions based on concern for their reputation. Or it’s called saving face as the West likes to claim what Asians are all about like they don’t do it themselves.
That they allowed the Boeing Starliner to go up, with no real backup plan to get it back down (the 2 astronauts are still up there lol), well, that should be enough to make a judgement about how much they actually care about people's lives lol.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
The West believes the stereotype that China doesn’t care about their own people’s wellbeing. I’ve read that China has a backup for everything they do when it comes to space in case there’s a failure or emergency. How come the US doesn’t have any backup? So who’s the one that doesn’t have any concern? Maybe it’s too expensive to have a backup in place.

It just goes to show it’s the US that rushes and makes decisions based on concern for their reputation. Or it’s called saving face as the West likes to claim what Asians are all about like they don’t do it themselves.

That they allowed the Boeing Starliner to go up, with no real backup plan to get it back down (the 2 astronauts are still up there lol), well, that should be enough to make a judgement about how much they actually care about people's lives lol.
Don’t let a good spin get in the way of facts right guys?:rolleyes:
ISS still has a Crewed Dragon capsule docked at the station. If they needed to evacuate those astronauts they could do so. There is also a Soyuz docked.
So return options are available that’s why they only put 2 astronauts not the full load out of 7. Well yes Starliner is an embarrassment they planned back up options. The Astronauts I am sure are touched by your concerns…
Space travel and missions are full of Risks. Always have been. Those whom choose and qualify for said missions are made aware of those risks. They still strap themselves upon the top of a million tons of highly explosive material a billion moving parts in a pressurized aluminum can all made by the lowest bidder.
 
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gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
ISS still has a Crewed Dragon capsule docked at the station. If they needed to evacuate those astronauts they could do so. There is also a Soyuz docked.
So return options are available that’s why they only put 2 astronauts not the full load out of 7. Well yes Starliner is an embarrassment they planned back up options. The Astronauts I am sure are touched by your concerns…
The Soyuz can just carry 3 crew. And you can bet seats are taken for Russian cosmonauts. It could be done, like sending just the Russian commander as a pilot, without the flight engineer. Put the two US astronauts in it. But then you would have at least one Russian cosmonaut remain in space for longer than planned, plus whoever came along in the mission probably another US astronaut.

Looking at the mission status, the current Soyuz capsule up there is Soyuz MS-25. The flight engineer is the first Belarussian women in space. I kind of of doubt Belarus would concede its seat. The commander/pilot is a Russian, and the third crewman was a US astronaut.
So they would have to ask Lukashenko to surrender the Belarussian seat to carry the two US astronauts down.

Way more likely is that they would use the Crew Dragon to send the crew down. i.e. SpaceX Crew-8. Because that has more seats and most are US astronauts.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
I wasn’t implying use of Soyuz unless absolutely necessary.
My main point is that despite claims my media headline clickbait and hot takes. If something happened and those astronauts needed to get back on earth in an hurry options are available. It’s unlikely that ISS will be abandoned completely anytime soon and during the 25 years of service at no point has it been left completely unmanned.
 

coolgod

Major
Registered Member
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NASA likely to significantly delay the launch of Crew 9 due to Starliner issues​


The primary reason for the delay is rather surprising.​

The Crew 9 delay is relevant to the Starliner dilemma for a couple of reasons. One, it gives NASA more time to determine the flight-worthiness of Starliner. However, there is also another surprising reason for the delay—the need to update Starliner’s flight software. Three separate, well-placed sources have confirmed to Ars that the current flight software on board Starliner cannot perform an automated undocking from the space station and entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
At first blush, this seems absurd. After all, Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test 2 mission in May 2022 was a fully automated test of the Starliner vehicle. During this mission, the spacecraft flew up to the space station without crew on board and then returned to Earth six days later. Although the 2022 flight test was completed by a different Starliner vehicle, it clearly demonstrated the ability of the program's flight software to autonomously dock and return to Earth. Boeing did not respond to a media query about why this capability was removed for the crew flight test.
It is not clear what change Boeing officials made to the vehicle or its software in the two years prior to the launch of Wilmore and Williams. It is possible that the crew has to manually press an undock button in the spacecraft, or the purely autonomous software was removed from coding on board Starliner to simplify its software package. Regardless, sources described the process to update the software on Starliner as "non-trivial" and "significant," and that it could take up to four weeks. This is what is driving the delay to launch Crew 9 later next month.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
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NASA likely to significantly delay the launch of Crew 9 due to Starliner issues​


The primary reason for the delay is rather surprising.​

Well, I think Boeing is telling the truth about software update for autonomous departure.

For departure with crew, the pre-check of life support system must pass that includes the air flow and cooling flow. A crewed spacecraft will be designed to refuse to depart unless the software knows that there is crew in it, otherwise a mulfunction of SW can depart on its own.

In the last test to ISS, there is a dummy that is hooked up to the life support system. This is not just a dead weight but actively consuming air and had cooling sytem running in its suite. The spacecraft just need a push of a button (time delayed) to undock. The pre-check and setting of every other switches are down by astrounaut who will close the hatch after pressing the button.

This time, there is no crew nor dummy to "fool" the system, so Boeing has to rewrite the code to some critical part of the SW. Unlike many people think and are surprised of, the SW this time should be identical to last time, nothing should be changed before the crew mission.

I also saw people in the comment area blaming NASA and Boeing for desperation by saying SW of OFT2 and now are different (auto departure removed) and then praise SpaceX as the only one being professional and serious. That is really wrong and why so many cult like worshipping around SpaceX is built up. Boeing messed up but is not crazy, SpaceX is good but isn't doing things different from others.

Here is live stream of OFT2, see the dummy.
1723593473108.png
 
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SlothmanAllen

Junior Member
Registered Member
Apparently RocketLab has the largest Automated Fibre Placement (AFP) device in the world. According to the video, the device stands 12 meters tall and can move laterally 30 meters. It is capable of laying down 100 meters of Carbon Fibre per minute reducing the construction time of a Stage 2 dome down from a couple of weeks by hand to 24 hours. The primary use of the device is to construct the largest Carbon Fibre structural parts of the upcoming Neutron rocket. The machine is installed in Middle River, Maryland which will function as the Carbon Fibre centre of excellence for RocketLab as well as the major carbon production site.

 

coolgod

Major
Registered Member
Well, I think Boeing is telling the truth about software update for autonomous departure.

For departure with crew, the pre-check of life support system must pass that includes the air flow and cooling flow. A crewed spacecraft will be designed to refuse to depart unless the software knows that there is crew in it, otherwise a mulfunction of SW can depart on its own.

In the last test to ISS, there is a dummy that is hooked up to the life support system. This is not just a dead weight but actively consuming air and had cooling sytem running in its suite. The spacecraft just need a push of a button (time delayed) to undock. The pre-check and setting of every other switches are down by astrounaut who will close the hatch after pressing the button.

This time, there is no crew nor dummy to "fool" the system, so Boeing has to rewrite the code to some critical part of the SW. Unlike many people think and are surprised of, the SW this time should be identical to last time, nothing should be changed before the crew mission.

I also saw people in the comment area blaming NASA and Boeing for desperation by saying SW of OFT2 and now are different (auto departure removed) and then praise SpaceX as the only one being professional and serious. That is really wrong and why so many cult like worshipping around SpaceX is built up. Boeing messed up but is not crazy, SpaceX is good but isn't doing things different from others.

Here is live stream of OFT2, see the dummy.
View attachment 134147
If the software can't be changed, is there a way for an astronaut to go inside the starliner, depart from the ISS, then hop back to the ISS using an eva suit?
 
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