written by Thomas Burghardt
December 21, 2019

After a maiden flight that was shortened by an off-nominal orbit insertion, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner conducted its first landing from orbit. Touchdown at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico occurred at 5:58 AM MST (12:58 UTC) on December 22.

The spacecraft approached from the southwest, overflying the Pacific Ocean and Baja California.

If, at any point leading up to the deorbit burn, NASA or Boeing teams felt the need to reevaluate landing options, there was a backup landing opportunity at 1:48 PM MST (20:48 UTC). Had this backup attempt is utilized, the spacecraft would have approached from the northwest. However, the first opportunity was taken.

Sunday’s landing attempt came six days earlier than originally intended. The Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission to demonstrate end-to-end performance of the uncrewed spacecraft was cut short by an error with Starliner’s Mission Elapsed Timer (MET).

During launch, Starliner sets its MET based on data retrieved from its Atlas V launch vehicle. During Friday’s nominal launch, Starliner retrieved the wrong data, resulting in an incorrectly set MET.

After nominally separating from the rocket, Starliner’s MET indicated that the spacecraft was at a point in the mission profile different than its actual location. This disagreement resulted in the orbit insertion (OI) burn, which moves Starliner into a stable orbit, not occurring on time.

Additionally, Starliner and its antennae were not oriented properly, again due to the MET error. This created a challenge for ground controllers attempting to command the OI burn, as establishing a data link between NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) and Starliner was delayed.

Once a positive command link was established, ground controllers commanded the spacecraft to conduct two burns in order to reach a circular 250 kilometer orbit.

While this orbit was stable, it was lower than the International Space Station’s altitude. After reaching a stable orbit, NASA and Boeing evaluated the possibility of maneuvering to the station, but concluded that an insufficient amount of fuel remained on board Starliner to conduct an approach. Starliner burned a significant amount of propellant while maneuvering to a stable orbit and maintaining the incorrect orientation after launch. //

In addition to the two burns conducted to reach Starliner’s 250 km orbit, several small checkout burns of Starliner’s propulsion systems have been successfully conducted. Station keeping and attitude control demonstrations were also completed.

Another major milestone was testing of Starliner’s Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) systems. This included successfully using the VESTA star tracking system for navigation. Also successfully established was a command link from ground controllers through the International Space Station to the Starliner spacecraft.

Over the span of 135 shuttle flights between 1981 and 2011, no shuttle was ever launched, in space, or guided to re-entry on New Year’s in order to avoid any unforeseen problems with the onboard systems.

In the 1960s, NASA commissioned Grumman Aircraft to build 15 space-worthy lunar modules, or LMs, for its Apollo program.

The fate of 14 modules is well-documented, but the last - LM-14 - is harder to account for in historical records. We attempted to track down and piece together the mystery of the seemingly missing moon lander.

Most experts we contacted weren't sure where it had gone, but we finally got a convincing answer (with documentation) from one space historian and artist.

• He believes the lander was scrapped and its aerospace-grade metal possibly reused in jet fighters.

Q: It appears from this question that Apollo missions carried Duct Tape and used it for in-flight fixups. Did they carry the other half of the "Universal Repair Kit" - WD40 (or similar)? If so, was it used?

Answers relating to other crewed space missions also welcome.

Universal Repair Kit: This page and many many other pages on the internet. //

A: It's hard to prove a negative, but the answer seems to be NO.

• It's not in D-7434 Stowage and the Support Team Concept, which has tables by location of the typical inventory stowed in the cabin.

• It's not in D-6737 Crew Provisions and Equipment Susbsystem, which describes in detail each of the items in the cabin.

• It's not listed in the actual stowage manifests by mission.

I searched for the terms oil, wd, and lubrica*. There were plenty of false positives such as screWDriver and fWD. Apollo 17 did carry LUBRICANT,HAND in the commander's suit pocket, but that's not WD-40.

I would be highly surprised to find it onboard. Equipment was designed to avoid in-flight maintenance such as lubrication or waterproofing. An important part of WD-40 is a volatile hydrocarbon which evaporates after application; you don't want that in the cabin air. Also, WD-40 is quite flammable, and after the Apollo 1 fire NASA did everything to avoid combustibles inside the cabin.

"I am concerned that the decisions are not being driven by what is most efficient." //

Bridenstine has decided that it is best to focus efforts on getting the core stage flying as soon as possible. Three SLS rocket flights by 2024 are probably all that Boeing can handle due to "performance issues" cited several times by Bowersox during Wednesday's hearing. This third flight would culminate in the Moon landing at the lunar south pole.

The NASA chief has also defended development of the Gateway as a critical component of a "sustainable" return to the Moon. Instead of emulating Apollo's "flags and footprints" missions from half a century ago, NASA would instead like to return to the Moon to stay and eventually send humans to Mars, using the Gateway as a staging point. //

added, "I am concerned that the decisions are not being driven by what is most efficient or effective and what is most cost efficient.”

This is an interesting viewpoint given that commercial rockets cost $100 to $200 million, at most, versus the $1 billion to $2 billion cost of a single SLS rocket—not including the hundreds of millions of dollars, at a minimum, the agency would have to invest in Exploration Upper Stage development contracts with Boeing. Moreover, one of the commercial rockets—the Falcon Heavy—already exists and has flown three successful missions. //

An SLS rocket with the better upper stage almost certainly wouldn't be ready by 2024, and NASA knows this.

"At this point, there is no path by which the Exploration Upper Stage will be ready for Artemis 3 in 2024," the NASA administration source told Ars. "Hence, it is not in the critical path (for the Moon landing)."

We’ve been sending gender-diverse crews to space since 1983. We’ve had women do every job a man does in space. Every one. Space walks? Check. Shuttle commander? Check. Space Station commander? Check. Record for long-duration flights? Check. So what’s going to be the new gender-bias thing NASA needs to start — start? — paying attention to?By the time I flew in space in the ‘90s, those things had changed; they’d evolved, emerged, progressed and been accommodated for. By then a crew member was just a crew member. The same is true today. They get what they need physically, personally and emotionally to support them in spaceflight. Not a big deal. So why the continued insistence on making it a big deal? //

And why keep bringing up the NASA-doesn’t-make-a-spacesuit-that-fits-a-woman story? The truth behind the cancellation last April of the “all-female spacewalk” was that it was a woman’s call! After doing her first spacewalk, Anne McClain realized that the task on the next one would require a longer arm reach than she had. Sure, they could have redesigned the choreography for that spacewalk, taken the time and the effort to delay the mission, replan and retrain for it. “But why?” she said. Let crewmate Nick Hague do it — he’s trained and he has a longer reach. Need a different tool to get the job done? Go to the toolbox and get a different tool. //

Dr. Mark’s big pitch is that diversity demands attention, especially in situations like a long space flight during which people have to understand their differences and get along. Well, what about six men and women on the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station representing multiple nationalities, different ethnicities and religions, and — in their home countries — competitive political ideologies? That’s not diverse enough for you? NASA has been doing this quietly and efficiently and without fanfare for the better part of the past 36 years.

At one point in time, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) - infamous for partially enforcing a monopoly over US launch markets and relying on old but proven technology - was actively pursuing advanced tech that could eventually enable orbital propellant depots and create what was described as a "cislunar economy".

Led in large part by former Vice President of Advanced Programs George Sowers (2006-2012, 2015-2017), ULA has pursued orbital refueling and propellant depots for the better part of a decade. //

Apparently, after he began a renewed push for propellant depots and reusable upper stages in 2015, Boeing quite literally tried to have him fired, clearly taking the depot concept as a direct threat to a big slice of pork: NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage (booster) contract. //

"Senator [Richard] Shelby [R - AL] called NASA and said if he hears one more word about propellant depots, he’s going to cancel [NASA's] space technology program." //

NASA has spent more than $2B annually on SLS alone in FYs 2017, 2018, and 2019, accounting - as of October 2019 - for nearly $6.5B spent on SLS in the last three years alone. SLS funding is likely to be increased yet again by Congress in FY2020. Since the Constellation Program's (2005-2010) Ares V rocket was rebirthed as the SLS program in 2011, NASA has spent more than $16B on the rocket alone, while its launch debut has slipped more than 4 years (late 2017 to late 2021). //

Whatever the end result, Sowers' blunt description of how Boeing (and SLS) have stunted US spaceflight innovation for years is simultaneously depressing and unsurprising, but serves as an extremely rare instance of candor from a former executive of a traditional US aerospace company.

“This is a NASA Spacecraft antenna. Its peculiar shape was designed by a computer. It's called an evolved antenna because it was designed a computer program that uses an evolutionary algorithm that mimics Darwinian evolution.”

"To look forward to the Moon, we need to learn from the past." //

The reality is that, even with a healthy budget increase, NASA can barely afford a human landing program on the Moon in the 2020s—at least using its Space Launch System rocket and usual ways of doing business, as it appears set on doing. This is more than enough for a space agency that has not flown a human into deep space for 47 years.

Talk of Mars is historically unsupportable with current budgets or NASA's existing technology. (As just one example, NASA at best can build one SLS rocket a year, and a single human mission to Mars would require six to eight SLS rocket launches). Past efforts to go to the Moon, Mars, or both have all ended in cancellation. So by talking about an all-of-the-above Moon-to-Mars exploration plan now, NASA's administration seems to be moving from the edge of the possible into the realm of the impossible

Although alternatives such as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy exist, the space agency is legally required to launch its Europa Clipper spacecraft on the behind-schedule Space Launch System //

The current appropriations bill mandates Europa Clipper use the SLS and requires a “launch no later than 2023” on the rocket. //

Each SLS launch is estimated to run more than $1 billion. //

2025—or on something other than the SLS—it would be in violation of current law, which means the law must change or a working SLS must suddenly appear in order for Europa Clipper to take off in accordance with federal statute. //

The SLS has an undeniable advantage over Falcon Heavy: it enables a direct flight from Earth to Jupiter. Falcon Heavy will require gravity assists from other planets, and unless it uses an add-on “kicker stage”—an additional upper stage for extra loft—one of those gravity assists will require an encounter with Venus. According to Salute, a Venus flyby introduces “a riskier environment, radiation and temperature. And so we would like to avoid flying closer to Venus with this direct trajectory that SLS affords us.

NASA is rationing watts to keep its oldest mission going. //

Beyond Earth and its bubble of satellites; past Mars, where rovers explore; past Jupiter and its circling orbiter—outside the solar system entirely—two spacecraft are gliding across interstellar space. They have crossed over the invisible boundary that separates our solar system from everything else, into territory untouched by the influence of the sun. People have seen much deeper into the universe, thanks to powerful telescopes that catch the light of distant stars. But this is the farthest a human invention has ever traveled. These hunks of gleaming metal and circuitry—they are the furthermost tangible proof of our existence. //

They prepare for what may be the mission’s final years. “Someday we’re going to have to say goodbye,” says Candy Hansen, a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute who worked on the Voyager mission in the 1970s and 1980s.

But not yet. This summer, engineers instructed Voyager 2 to fire up a set of thrusters that the spacecraft hasn’t used since 1989.

Ever wanted your own Saturn 1 rocket? For anyone with the means to transport it, it can be yours. //

Mint condition. Only $250k to transport it...

From the Rogers Commission to reading Dr. Diane Vaughn’s book The Challenger Launch Decision took me 17 years. For all those years I had learned the wrong lesson about the loss of Challenger. The sound-bite explanation kept me in ignorance. You know, that a rogue manager for venal motives suppressed the concerns of good engineers and true when they tried to stop the launch. As Dr. Vaughn more correctly analyzed the decision “It can truly be said that the Challenger launch decision was a rule-based decision. It was not amorally calculating managers violating rules that were responsible for the tragedy. It was conformity.” The sound-bite explanation was satisfying, easy to live with, and wrong. It failed to ask the more penetrating questions. But even more importantly, it failed to spur specific action. Just feeling anger at a bad decision or sadness at the loss is diffuse and unmotivating. It is imperative that we learn the proper lessons from history and use those to inculcate specific actions and behaviors that will result in safety for our people – and success for our missions.

So, ten years after Columbia, what are the lessons we should have learned and should practice every day? Here are my thoughts especially for those who work in dangerous and risky endeavors.

Ben Blackburn says:
August 5, 2019 at 3:34 pm
Airlines land, refuel and take off all the time, and all the pilots do is walk around and kick the tires between flights. That is the goal for Starship.
Yes, they will inspect any heat shielding that it has after every flight, but it will be designed so that it doesn’t take months to inspect like the Shuttle,, and won’t need repair under normal circumstances.
The shuttle used an aluminum skin and structure, so any heat leakage would cause catastrophic failure because the aluminum just falls apart..Starship will be stainless steel, so it may warp or melt in worst case scenario, but only where the damage is, and they won’t have crew or fuel directly on the other side. So much more robust design, and being a simple shape, much less complicated heat shielding design.

The Starship booster is about the same diameter as the Shuttle external tank, and about 50 feet longer.
It will have more fuel, and more power, than the shuttle did.
And then Starship will be sitting on top of it, instead of on the side like the shuttle.
And unlike the shuttle, Starship has a lot of fuel on board itself.
The shuttle only used fuel from the external tank and had none on board.
So when you look at the total fuel on board the full stack its considerably more than shuttle had.
This is possible because the Raptor engines are more powerful and efficient with the ffsc design.

As far as fuel for landing, it will take very little fuel for the booster to land, because most of its weight will be gone as fuel is burned on ascent so it just needs enough to run 1 or 3 out of the 31 engines and only for a few seconds.

Ben Blackburn says:
August 5, 2019 at 3:12 pm
The check valves were needed to prevent propellant from going from the propellant tanks back into the unpressurized helium lines.
There is a valve at the helium tank, long pipes taking a twisted path to the propellant tanks, a check valve at the propellant tanks, and then throttle valves between the propellant tanks and the engines.
Once the helium valve is turned on, the pressurization lines are at a higher pressure than the propellant, so no propellant will get back up into the helium lines.

And once the system is activated and pressurized, it will stay pressurized until it lands and is safed, either for abort or for propulsive landing.

The throttle valve is what controls the engines for maneuvering, the fuel system stays pressurized.

In order for propellant to mix, it would have to travel upstream a long distance through 2 long and twisty pipes, and then back feed through 2 pressure regulator valves, and finally to the manifold at the helium tank.
That’s not going to happen!

What did happen is that a small amount flowed back through a check valve and pooled in a low spot in the piping, and then when the system was pressurized rapidly, it was driven at extreme force down the pipe, like water hammer burst the check valve, and under the high pressure and temperature of the impact reacted with the titanium in the valve causing the explosion. It wasn’t propellants mixing that caused it, and as long as the system is pressurized, the helium prevents the back flow.

SpaceX is irrevocably on a path to a much larger craft called “BFR” or the more family-friendly “Starship”. This is intended to have all of the features that Falcon and Dragon are not getting. They developed a staged-combustion full-flow engine to fly it. This is more powerful than other engines, and around twice as complicated, as there is a fuel-rich and an oxidizer-rich pre-combustion stage, each with its own turbopump. This recently flew on the hopper prototype in Boca Chica, Texas. However, it avoids pumping fuel and oxidizer on the same shaft, as all conventional liquid-fueled rockets do today, which requires a lot of the seal between them.

This was the first flight of that sort of engine not to end in explosion since 1969, when the Russian N1, their answer to the Saturn V, failed 23 seconds after lift-off, causing one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.

Despite this entire project looking far-fetched and being carried out in an unconventional way (construction of major components outdoors, a low-fidelity prototype that could have been a water tower, but flew), they have made tremendous progress. SpaceX and Musk make very ambitious bets, and carry them out, which appears to have been missing from other space efforts.

I understated. It was the first flight of that engine type ever which did not end in explosion. I think only three design attempts have even made it to a test stand.

When the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft reached orbit for the first time in 2010, it was a historic achievement. But to qualify for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program,… //

Unfortunately, this complex dual-function system has now become something of a liability. SpaceX believes the explosion in April was not due to a fault in the SuperDraco engines themselves, but in a leaky one-way check valve. Put simply, the propellants leaked into a part of the system in which they were never designed to be. When the propellant tanks were pressurized in preparation of firing the engines, the foreign liquids caused the plumbing to rupture. The resulting release of the highly energetic hypergolic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants used in the SuperDraco tore the spacecraft to pieces almost instantaneously. //

Replacing the valves with single-use burst discs means the SuperDraco engines cannot be fired until they are actually needed, and when they are activated, they’ll likely be run until the propellant tanks are dry. In short, the switch to burst discs means the SuperDraco engines are much closer to the traditional “one and done” abort systems than SpaceX originally envisioned.

Technology, People, Equipment, Missions

Here's how they did it.

The heart of the engine was the thrust chamber, which mixed and burned the fuel and oxidizer to produce thrust. A domed chamber at the top of the engine supplied liquid oxygen to the injectors, which directed fuel and oxidizer into the thrust chamber for mixing and combustion. An incredibly volatile chamber that had to be tested to perfection. While the Apollo 6 launch was a bit shaky, when they launched the rocket again with its first human crew on Apollo 8, they had fixed the pogo problem.The crew of three made it safely to the moon and back. By the time Apollo 11 launched to the moon in July of 1969, the Saturn V was flying smoothly. During the remaining Apollo missions and subsequent launches the Saturn V and F-1 engines never experienced a failure. It was perfect, and the F-1 engine still holds the record as the largest single-chamber, single-nozzle liquid fuel engine ever flown.As NASA looks to manned missions to the moon and mars, they are developing a new rocket called Space Launch System (SLS). It will require a modern version of the F-1 and NASA engineers have even pulled an old F-1 engine out of storage to learn how to build the next big thing even better by studying this incredible engine with a perfect flying record.