Boeing is definitely “keeping the hits coming” — but not in a good way. Today’s Seattle Times story provides additional details about the aborted ISS docking attempt last month. It turns out that the reason for the problem was … failure to synchronize clocks properly:
On Dec. 20, an Atlas V rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, delivering the Starliner into space. But soon after it was on its own, the Starliner suffered a software problem – its onboard clock was 11 hours off. As a result, the engines that would have put it on a trajectory to the space station failed to fire, even while other thrusters, designed to keep the capsule stable, did fire, expending precious fuel.
The loss of fuel meant the Starliner could not make the rendezvous and eventually had to return early.
The big question now is whether NASA will require a repeat of the docking test. They’re considering waiving the requirement, but if anything goes wrong with an actual crew aboard, that would be a major setback for NASA and Boeing (and a potentially seriously bad day for the crew...). After the ongoing MAX horror show, I’m kind of surprised (well, maybe not) about the happy talk by NASA and Boeing:
Two days after it launched, Starliner landed safely in the New Mexico desert, days ahead of schedule, and officials from NASA and Boeing went out of their way to highlight the things that went well during the mission.
“We’re all very excited that a whole lot of things did go right – went very, very well as a matter of fact,” Bridenstine said after the landing. “In fact, you could argue that some of the hardest parts of this mission have now been proven to be very capable.”
Talk about hubris! I’m a bit surprised that this Bridenstine character wasn’t fried crispy a few seconds later by a lightning bolt.