Boeing Boeing

Boeing bringing the airline travel experience to space travel.

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2025???

Sounds like this is going to kill the program

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Does anyone have a link for the rumour I’ve been reading that Starliner can’t fly uncrewed with its current software? Meaning that sending it back empty is going to take a some bit-wrangling?

ETA: whew, seems to be just a rumour.

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Starliner latest: NASA outlines options to rescue Boeing pilots stuck on space station

[…]

In the event Starliner is deemed unsuitable for a crewed return – and this is still very much an ‘if’ at present – the plan would be to fly a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to the station as expected – the mission dubbed Crew-9 – but with only two astronauts rather than four, and whatever equipment is needed. Boeing’s Wilmore and Williams would then become part of Crew-9 and return to Earth in the SpaceX pod in February 2025.

Starliner itself would make an uncrewed return. The NASA team explained that while the software loaded into the capsule was perfectly capable of an autonomous return – after all, that was how a previous uncrewed flight test worked – some parameters would need to be changed to reflect the lack of a crew.

In addition, some simulations and training on the ground would be needed to verify the changed procedures.

_[…]…

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Don’t you just hate when a week-long trip becomes an 8-month stay? Hope they get overtime

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Looks like Ortberg has his work cut out for him.
Also, I think I’ll call him “Bob” to avoid confusion.

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Bored Season 5 GIF by The Office

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It’s almost like someone at Boeing realised that they can make more money by not building what they were contracted to build.

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… I have just discovered Robert Reich’s YouTube channel

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Not really anything new, but a slightly different angle:

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25%!

That means they were either severely underpaid compared to the value they create, or they’re in a great bargaining position over a desperate company

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Undeterred by the problems of its Starliner crewed space capsule, Boeing has a plan to do a bit of uncrewed science – launching a satellite upon which it will run a demo of quantum entanglement swapping that could help enable secure comms.

Boeing says it plans to send the satellite, dubbed “Q4S,” to orbit sometime in 2026 on a self-funded mission to demonstrate the feasibility of quantum communications - at least in the West.

[…]

A specific launch date wasn’t shared, nor were details on how the satellite will get to space - we’re told it’ll be riding with a launch partner, but Boeing didn’t want to name who that might be.

[…]