Six years ago, a rare Russian abandonment of an astronaut release caused delays in manned spacecraft schedules. This week, NASA may face the same thing after a rare failure to release SpaceX.
In 2018, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft was on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) when a challenge to the sensor aboard the rocket (also known as a Soyuz) forced the team to escape an emergency liftoff. The two astronauts on board were unharmed, however, for several weeks, it was unclear whether the same six-month rotation of the ISS teams would be disrupted. (Fortunately, Russia solved the challenge temporarily and sent the next team to the area weeks later, on December 3, 2018, at a time when Soyuz was the only launch option for the ISS. )
NASA officials noted in 2018 that the abandonment demonstrated why we needed multiple spacecraft to succeed at the ISS. “We’re in a very complicated case and it can surely humiliate you, and you can never lose sight of it,” Kenneth Todd, then NASA’s chief of operations and integration for the ISS, told reporters during a live observation session after the abortion. .
NASA was working with SpaceX and Boeing at the time to expand two publicity vehicles for the ISS crew, as Soyuz was the only means of transportation to the space station after the round trip was retired from the company. in 2011. Todd under pressure “We have to eat this elephant little by little,” he said.
Today, the characteristics of spacecraft are back in the news. SpaceX has undoubtedly taken on the role of launching humans since its first Crew Dragon sent two NASA astronauts into the air on a test project in 2020. But after a rare Falcon 9 (Fnine) failure last week in a Starlink satellite launch, SpaceX is facing an indefinite delay in launching astronauts while other variants of the same rocket fly satellites and astronauts. SpaceX’s rocket challenge highlights the ISS consortium’s long-standing strategy of having spacecraft.
Related: SpaceX Falcon Nine rocket failure forces NASA to compare astronaut launch schedule for ISS
“Unforeseen events can happen,” Dana Weigel, now NASA’s ISS program manager, told reporters at a March 22 briefing with Space. com at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. And because the space station’s life and water systems depend on astronauts. “A steady flow” to keep operating, he noted, keeping the ISS busy is important for operational protection, apart from the other targets of clinical feedback and hosting valuable advertising experiments.
“Today, all of our Crew Dragons are featured in F9,” he added. “If there’s a challenge with the F9, for example, and we had to prevent for a while to solve the challenge, if we had some other vehicle, we could just keep flying. “
The launch of SpaceX’s Crew-9 with 4 astronauts was scheduled to take off in mid-August for a biannual project to the ISS, replacing the Crew-8 quartet on board since March. NASA said on July 12 that it is too early to say whether Crew-9 or any other project would be delayed, but under pressure that protection is the priority and that the company will compare “potential effects as planned, where appropriate, as more data becomes available. ” . ”
“Although the launch of SpaceX Starlink was an entirely publicity mission,” the company added in an email to reporters, “NASA receives data from SpaceX on all topics of interest related to the Falcon 9 rocket. “
SpaceX has since asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to make a public protection decision, which would allow them to resume launches if the FAA determines that the anomaly endangered the public.
Related: 2 taxis for astronauts: Why NASA wants both Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Dragon
NASA’s commercial crew program aims to send astronauts to the ISS on both SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner. SpaceX is certified to fly operational ISS missions for about half a year each. It has done so eight times without fail since a crew test launch in 2020. It also sent up three shorter Axiom Space ISS commercial astronaut missions and the independently funded Inspiration4 mission to low Earth orbit. The rocket SpaceX uses, Falcon 9, is also highly reliable: Falcon 9 has sent 364 crewed and uncrewed missions to space with no issues, according to SpaceX figures, with only two major failures in its 14-year launch history.
Boeing and Starliner were shortlisted in several rounds of festivals involving other corporations and earned billions of dollars in 2014 for what were then supposed to be astronaut launches in 2017. Technical and monetary delays have pushed this schedule back. SpaceX introduced its first astronauts in 2020, basing its crewed design on a successful Dragon spacecraft that has been flying since 2012. Now, it flies crews to the ISS for six-month missions.
Starliner, a new spacecraft, sent its first team into space on June 5, 2024 after its own delays. An unequipped test in 2019 went wrong because computer problems kept Starliner in the wrong orbit, too far away to reach the ISS as planned. After adequately troubleshooting issues during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Starliner was unable to make a second attempt at this project until 2022. The spacecraft managed to reach the ISS, but the booster delayed docking. Boeing and NASA worked on those problems, but discovered others in 2023: the ship’s parachutes carried less load than expected and flammable tape covered much of the wiring. Therefore, other fixes were made.
Starliner is in the middle of a test project to gain certification for its first operational launch, currently planned for 2025. Having American spacecraft available to fly to the ISS has been a goal since about 2010, and NASA appears to have almost achieved it . But that depends on whether Starliner is qualified for operational paints after its existing project, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT).
“That’s been our purpose from the beginning: to have two other systems,” Steve Stich, program director for NASA’s publicity team, told reporters at the same March 22 briefing Weigel attended.
“I think in the past we’ve noticed the importance of having this different redundancy,” Stich continued. “It’s complicated to fly in space. There are demanding situations with each and every launch vehicle and spacecraft. That’s why, for us, having the shipping formula right now is incredibly important. “
The final effort to release CFT with the two astronauts, former US Navy control pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, required more effort. At first, everything seemed on track for a launch on May 6, 2024, until United Launch Alliance discovered a vibrating valve on its Atlas V rocket, which has flown without failure on more than 80 missions. This valve caused a delay, which NASA and Boeing discovered a small helium leak in one of the Starliner’s Reaction Control System (RCS) boosters.
Starliner uses 28 RCS thrusters for in-orbit maneuvers; As the others remained reliable after extensive testing and computer modeling, NASA approved the launch for June 5. (A little more time was needed to ensure that RCS worked in all reentry scenarios, as a design vulnerability was also discovered in the formula. ) However, five of the 28 boosters misbehaved during critical docking to the ISS on June 6, resulting in an additional delay before the astronauts arrived safely at the ISS.
Related: Boeing’s Starliner is in a position to carry astronauts after years of delays. This is what took so long.
NASA and Boeing have indefinitely extended what was intended to be a 10-day CFT project while they painstakingly investigate what happened, which now includes testing the thrusters on the ground to see if they can figure out the problem. Starliner is still allowed to leave the space station in an emergency, but engineers need to understand how the RCS formula works for Starliner’s operational projects in the future.
“What we’re doing is just taking the time to make sure we’ve examined under every rock and every stone, and making sure there’s nothing else that might surprise us,” Stitch told reporters at a news conference. broadcast live on July 12. ” That’s probably the most productive way to describe what we do, because we’re taking extra time. It’s a verification flight, and the first crewed flight, and we’re just taking a little extra time to make sure we’ve figured it all out before. We are committed to deorbiting. “
The two CFT astronauts insisted in their own press conference from orbit on July 12 that aerospace progress missions, whether for the U. S. Navy, or for the U. S. Navy, are the most important aspects of the project. Whether you’re a U. S. citizen or NASA, you’ll have to be flexible when problems arise. “This is a test flight and we were hoping to locate a few things,” Williams said. “We locate things, repair them, and make updates with our control team. “
Wilmore pointed to ongoing floor testing at the White Sands Test Center in New Mexico as a key step in understanding why the thrusters experienced disruption when docking. “We will be informed of this,” he said. We will incorporate new processes and procedures that we will use as needed. “
Related: When will Starliner come home? Boeing and NASA still don’t know
The difficulties that the shuttles, Boeing, SpaceX, Soyuz and other space systems have faced in launching and landing humans over the decades illustrate the harsh reality of space. Even reliable and proven local machines can fail fatally, as happened to the Soyuz and Shuttle.
The Soyuz, despite five decades of demonstrated flight experience, experienced another recent incident: a spacecraft spilled coolant in orbit in December 2022. This forced NASA to expand a contingency plan to bring in Frank Rubio from the NASA home in case of an emergency, if a new Soyuz may not be in a position to bring you home on time as planned. They planned to place it in a transitional seat aboard Crew Dragon, elegantly strapped beneath the spacecraft’s four permanent seats. Although this situation never happened. pass, is another example among many in which several features are practical for transporting astronauts.
The boost for the publicity teams came after one of NASA’s most challenging missions. In 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon landing, killing seven astronauts after a piece of foam fell and released broken slabs critical to re-entry. fourth fleet for more than two years, while the ISS was still under primary construction.
Meanwhile, the Soyuz was being used for astronaut launches, but the Columbia incident also introduced a long-term effort to get a new type of spacecraft to the ISS. NASA had first planned to use the Orion spacecraft for ISS launches, but delays in progress led to a pivot toward spacecraft advertising in 2009. (Orion, after several program changes, is still ongoing as a spacecraft in NASA’s Artemis program for the Moon missions. )
Related: Russian Soyuz rocket suffers a rare last-minute miscarriage in the launch of 3 astronauts to the ISS (video)
It is possible that SpaceX will temporarily resolve the Falcon 9 challenge and Boeing will send its next astronaut project to space in 2025 as planned. Or, as is often the case in spaceflight, one or any of these advertising group systems might have to prioritize. schedules on protection and set aside the next planned project, for now.
NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman served as the agency’s lead astronaut in the Soyuz abandonment, adding at the post-launch press conference that day in October 2018. Wiseman now leads his own progression project, Artemis 2, whose objective is to reunite four humans. Moon in September 2025 at the earliest. It will be the first human lunar project in at least 53 years.
Artemis 2 has also been delayed recently, in part due to long-standing issues with Orion’s heat shield that require additional research. Wiseman and his teammates have continually said that schedules are never the purpose when using spacecraft; Focus on protection and only continue when everything is ready.
“The primary goal of the progression program, if you strip out everything else, is to fly. That’s what we’re looking to do,” Wiseman told Space. com at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, near the Starliner launch site. hours before the launch attempt. of the CFT on May 6.
— SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fails to launch Starlink satellite (video)
— FAA investigates failure of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket
— SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket suffers rare abandonment in the last second Starlink satellite launch (video)
“When you build a new vehicle, no matter how many needs you set and how many rating systems you describe, when human hands try to put together an incredibly complex and rugged machine, it manifests itself in certain disorders. And there will be things to be informed of when we launch it,” Wiseman added, basing his comments on his experience as a test pilot in the U. S. Navy. He joined NASA before joining NASA.
The Artemis 2 commander praised SpaceX’s “well-oiled machine” for astronaut launches, but said the company also had its own technical issues in getting Crew Dragon to this point. Even then, no one can be complacent.
“After some cars are stolen, you start removing those items,” Wiseman said of the disorders found during development. “But I would also say that in spaceflight there is no routine. I think we just learned that history. There will be a curve, every once in a while, and it will go away. “address, resolve, repair, integrate.
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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph. D. , has been editor of the Spaceflight Channel since 2022 and also covers diversity, education, and gaming. She worked as an editor for Space. com for 10 years before joining the organization full time. Elizabeth’s reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and the Office of the Vice President of the United States, an exclusive verbal exchange with aspiring local tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times to the International Space Station and helping five human beings. area flight launches. on two continents, flying parabolas, running in a space suit and participating in a simulated Mars project. Her most recent book, “Why Am I Taller?”, is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth has a Ph. D. and M. Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a BA in Journalism from Carleton University in Canada, and a BA in History from Athabasca University in Canada. Elizabeth has also been a post-secondary science and communications instructor at various facilities since 2015; Her experience includes creating and teaching an astronomy course at Algonquin University in Canada (also with Indigenous content) to over 1,000 students as of 2020. Elizabeth first became interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996. , and he still wants an astronaut. One day. Giant: https://qoto. org/@howellarea
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