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NASA freezes Starliner missions

(gizmodo.com)
269 points rntn | 2 comments | 17 Oct 24 19:56 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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elintknower ◴[17 Oct 24 21:07 UTC] No.41873803[source]▶
That took long enough. Insane that the gov was entirely silent after this week's starship launch as well...

Even though I'm not an elon fan, pretending to not notice for political reasons (not to mention the insane halving of launches at Vandenberg AFB) is completely insane and damaging to our country.

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everybodyknows ◴[17 Oct 24 21:40 UTC] No.41874106[source]▶
One way to read the delay was that the technical teams were working against a deadline clock that started as soon as the vehicle landed, to analyze and propose remedies for the thruster failures and helium leaks. And now they've hit that deadline, having found no good fixes.
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verzali ◴[18 Oct 24 09:39 UTC] No.41877739[source]▶
I suspect it's more at a program level. Boeing have lost a lot of money on Starliner, may lose a lot more, and already seem lukewarm on continuing with the project. It's actually NASA that's keener on keeping it running, so that they are not entirely dependent on SpaceX for human spaceflight.
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justinclift ◴[18 Oct 24 12:57 UTC] No.41879006{3}[source]▶
NASA might need to redo the tender for the 2nd supplier of crewed missions, regardless of the (even further) reputational hit to Boeing.
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1. Tuna-Fish ◴[19 Oct 24 18:31 UTC] No.41889620{4}[source]▶
ISS is not going to stay up there for long enough for a new second supplier to make sense.
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2. justinclift ◴[21 Oct 24 13:43 UTC] No.41904096[source]▶
That doesn't seem right. It's supposed to be up there through to 2030+, and the point of a 2nd supplier is just to ensure there aren't any blocker level problems if a single supplier has issues.