Welp, first it was the Boeing Starliner issues (now 55 days and continuing, HERE). And a ‘contrary’ opinion of their options, HERE.
And now the NG supply capsule Cygnus didn’t make the original Targeted Altitude Burn…
A Falcon 9 launched a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station Aug. 4, but the spacecraft suffered problems that have delayed maneuvers needed to reach the station.
A Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:02 a.m. Eastern. The launch appeared to go as planned, with the Cygnus spacecraft separating from the Falcon’s upper stage in low Earth orbit nearly 15 minutes after liftoff. The liftoff, delayed a day because of poor weather, dodged the effects of Tropical Storm Debby to the west that, at one point, offered only a 10% chance of acceptable weather for the launch.
There were no updates from NASA or Northrop Grumman after spacecraft separation for several hours. However, communications between ISS astronauts and mission control indicated that the spacecraft had not performed initial burns to raise its orbit to enable an arrival at the station early Aug. 6.
Full article, HERE from Space News.
NG apparently had to override a low pressure alarm to get Cygnus to do two burns that put it in a ‘catch up’ mode, and it is supposed to arrive at the ISS sometime this morning.
At least now the Starliner pilots will have clothes to wear, and Cygnus is bringing replacement food for the ISS to replace what they’ve eaten out of the emergency supplies…
But, this will block all of the ‘parking spots’ at the ISS, which now puts the next Dragon flight in jeopardy, as there is no place to put the capsule when it arrives.
So, NASA is having to do a LOT of re/preplanning until they get this mess unscrewed. I really don’t envy them…
“This is ground control to Maj. Tom…….” “Here am I sitting in a tin can……”
I suspect Nasa and Boeing are delaying the inevitable, that this Starliner will have to be jettisoned to burn up in the atmosphere. Which also puts them in the somewhat embarrassing position of having Space X rescuing Wilmore and Williams with Crew Dragon.
Problem is, according to yesterday’s ‘thesiliconegreybeard.com’, Boeing and NASA have removed the self-piloting software from Starliner. So the thing has to be piloted. There’s no way to jettison the POS.
Supposedly.
Poor Gene Kranz is probably ripping his hair out watching this clusterfuck of a mission. The only “good” thing is that nobody has died. Yet.
First SpaceX shows the issues with keeping features past their use-by date (unused sensor line fractured and led to the failure of the 2nd stage) and now Boeing shows what happens when you jump the gun if they have no way to reload the auto-fly software on the Starliner computers.
It’s the astronaut version of a ‘three hour tour’.
Boats- Yep!
Mike- I think you are correct, but they are scrambling to do ANYTHING but that.
Raptor- Oh yeah!
Rick- That too, and why it wasn’t ALREADY loaded!
Tuvela- Ouch!
Yeah….NASA can’t even launch a resupply mission anymore. But at least the proper “minorities” are well represented as part of NASA’s roster. Just like the economy is going to hell but there are no more “mean tweets”.
The whole bit about taking FOUR WEEKS to load the software is completely suspicious. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. My guess is that the software got deleted or something hardware-wise is missing.
Dan- Point.
John- Yeah, that is ‘odd’…
“The center cannot hold…”
“Obama Tasks NASA Chief With Muslim Relations”
The pay off.
Great tips on improving translation accuracy. Very helpful!