Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

Its return was successful. That's the good news, but the flight was not without incident: "Flight controllers conducted more test firings of the capsule’s thrusters following undocking; one failed to ignite. Engineers suspect the more the thrusters are fired, the hotter they become, causing protective seals to swell and obstruct the flow of propellant. They won’t be able to examine any of the parts; the section holding the thrusters was ditched just before reentry."

So they've recovered the capsule, and now they have a theory about what caused the thruster malfunction. And it's not difficult to test thrusters under high temperature as they have test chambers that can easily simulate those conditions. So we may have some answers on the thrusters forthcoming.

But we still don't know about the helium leak. Helium is kinda tricky. It's a very small molecule and can leak easily, that's why rubber helium balloons shrink so rapidly. The mylar helium balloons keep their inflation because mylar is less leaky than rubber: harder for the gas to escape.

Included in the capsule were the two astronauts' space suits and some old lab equipment.

The article has a video of the capsule undocking from the ISS which is pretty cool, seeing the thrusters firing to change its orientation.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/astronauts-left-behind-boeing-starliner-capsule-returns_n_66dbe6e5e4b01c1d24fc405c

The software has been updated for Boing to take full remote control of the vehicle and attempt to undock it and bring it back to Earth, where it will land at Space Harbor at White Sands Missile Range, about a hundred miles from my house, around six hours later. If all goes to plan.

One disappointing thing about it is that the thrusters that are the center point of the problem will be lost. Once the capsule is properly oriented for atmospheric reentry, they are part of an assembly that is ejected from the craft and they burn up in the atmosphere. We'll never know precisely what was wrong with those helium thrusters and we'll have to hope that engineers can duplicate the problem with ground-based units and testing.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/boeing-will-try-to-fly-its-troubled-starliner-capsule-back-to-earth-next-week/

White Sands is a tough place. It is the world's largest gypsum desert, pull it up in Google Earth, it's pretty cool. Once the Space Shuttle landed in California at Edwards and was being flown back to Florida and landed at White Sands to avoid a storm. And the gypsum just utterly trashed the 747 transporter's brakes! It was supposed to be there for a day or two while the storm abated, it was there for a couple of weeks while a crew was brought out to check out and service the plane! But it was a very scenic backdrop for photos while it was there.


The Dragon capsule that will be flying in late September with Crew 9 has had the final crew decided. The crew has been reduced from the normal four to two to accommodate the return of the two astronauts stranded by Boing. The capsule has been modified with additional seats behind the four crew seats.

One issue has been that of space suits. NASA standard space suits, such as those used for the travelers in the Starliner, are not compatible with the fittings in the Dragon. SpaceX has much more modern suits which are more comfortable and flexible/maneuverable for travel, whereas the NASA suits are better for EVA work if needed. There is one spare SpaceX suit on-hand on the ISS right now that will fix one of the two stranded astronauts, NASA has not revealed which. And Crew 9 will be bringing another suit, presumably for the other astronaut, so everyone will be properly suited for their return in February.

There is a second purpose for the seat reconfiguration of the Dragon capsule. The norm for the ISS is that there is always a Soyuz capsule docked to be used as an emergency life boat in case the station has to be abandoned in the event of an emergency: a fire, a debris collision that can't be avoided, etc. There have been a few times over the station's life where the crew have taken shelter in the capsule. This seat reconfiguration will allow the Dragon to serve as a lifeboat while docked. I have no idea if the Russians are planning a launch to coincide with the departure of the Dragon in February to fill its emergency role.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-makes-a-very-tough-decision-in-setting-final-crew-9-assignments/

The photo is pretty impressive!

The mission, called OSIRIS-REx, launched in 2016, to visit the asteroid Bennu in December 2018. The sampler, dubbed TAGSAM for Touch and Go Sampler Module, had a sampler arm and a one-way flap that sort of bounced on the asteroid, gathering material and shoving it down the flap. It bounced all over the surface of the asteroid getting different material.

Then it came back to Earth!

It landed in Utah in September of last year and was put into an isolation chamber and thoroughly documented. Lots of asteroid dust was removed from the surface of the container, in fact that material alone was greater than what was expected to be gathered from the mission! Before they got the canister open, they recovered 8.8 ounces of rock (250 grams), the goal of the mission was to recover at least 60 grams, so it was already Mission Accomplished.

The problem was that when they stated removing the bolts to open the canister that held the bulk of the sample collection, two bolts didn't want to come out! This was a very big problem because the canister was in a clean box, the kind where you stick your hand in gloves that are permanently attached to the side, that sort of thing. The box had an air lock so things could be moved in and out of it, but any tools used to work on the container had to be specifically approved to avoid contaminating the samples. What's the point of analyzing asteroid samples and finding flakes of steel only to later realize it came from a wrench that you used to open it? You'd look pretty stupid.

So anything new brought in to try to help open it had to be very space-constrained, had to be made out of very specific materials, and probably had a lot of other restrictions.

With the canister now open, the samples will be cataloged and 30% will be sent out to a team of international scientists for study.

But here's the cool and smart part: NASA is holding on to 70% of the samples for FUTURE STUDY. They're waiting for advances in technology and methods over the coming years/decades before they dig into the remaining samples! I think that's pretty smart. So we get instant(ish) gratification from studying what was brought back, from which we'll learn a lot, and we'll get more results at some later point as science improves, which will have a foundation of the previous study(ies) to build upon.

I really hope they are planning other OSIRIS-REx-like missions to take samples from other asteroids.

https://gizmodo.com/nasa-osiris-rex-canister-reveal-asteroid-sample-trove-1851184737

This article describes the problem encountered with the stuck bolts:
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-samples-bennu-stuck-container-1851102598

Once again proving that space is hard. It's even harder when Congress orders you to use 40 year old technology that was twitchy to begin with in order to create jobs in Congressional districts, rather than newer tech that's more robust.

And now they were allegedly trying to fit into a flight window without having successfully completed a full fueling cycle. This attempt hit 1/9th of the rocket's capacity. The previous test got a lot fuller.

The current problem is an 8" liquid hydrogen fuel line and its quick disconnect. Hydrogen is really small and leaks easily. They expect this, and allow for a 4% leak rate. Unfortunately this was rapidly exceeded and became a KAABLOOEY risk. The process was stopped and restarted in hopes of getting a better seal in the quick disconnect line, but it was not achieved, and ultimately the "launch" had to be aborted.

I did not expect a launch to happen, my odds were placed towards a Unscheduled Rapid Disassembly if it did manage to lift off the pad.

At this point, while they say that they might be able to pull off a launch before Tuesday, the most likely scenario is rolling the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Aside from the liquid hydrogen leak, they're very close to exhausting the batteries that power the emergency escape system, which forms an absolute limit on how long the rocket can remain out. There's also the issue of literal wear and tear on the rocket sitting there, fully assembled, without launching. It's going to have to be taken apart, inspected, and patched up here and there.

The SLS will be capable of launching every two years. Tops. It's already billions of dollars over budget. SpaceX will eat its proverbial lunch by launching multiple times a year. NASA just bought additional seats on SpaceX to keep flying to the space station until 2030. Oh, and a Boeing seat? Approx $188 million per. SpaceX seat? $88 mill.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/years-after-shuttle-nasa-rediscovers-the-perils-of-liquid-hydrogen/

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/nasa-will-pay-boeing-more-than-twice-as-much-as-spacex-for-crew-seats/

Hydrazine is very, VERY nasty stuff! You have to wear a pressurized environment suit when using it to fuel things, it's very toxic.

The new stuff, AFM-315, is less toxic than caffeine. And it's 50% more energetic than hydrazine, which means satellites can have a longer life, assuming they're in a higher orbit, which -315 can help them achieve! It was described as so safe that people sat around in standard lab gear with -315 in plastic jugs as they used it to fuel a satellite. It's a liquid salt and doesn't freeze at extremely low temperatures, from the article it "undergoes a glass transition instead. This transforms the fuel into a brittle, glass-like solid, but it doesn’t cause the fuel to expand like frozen water or hydrazine. This attribute prevents fuel lines and storage containers from cracking under stress. Moreover, its glass transition point is extremely low, so the fuel wouldn’t need to be heated on the satellite—a big power suck for other missions. McLean says this will make more power available for other instruments or systems on the satellite, which could open up new possibilities in missions to other planets."

Very cool stuff. It was actually invented 20 years ago, but people have been slow to adopt it as they wanted to see how it worked out.

Also from the Wired article, "On June 24 it is scheduled to fly on the second operational mission of the Falcon Heavy along with several other payloads, including an atomic clock being tested for deep space navigation.

The green propellant satellite bus was developed by Ball Aerospace and is outfitted with four 1-newton thrusters and one 22-newton thruster that will be used to test the AFM-315 propellant. During its 13-month mission it will use the thrusters to perform orbital maneuvers, such as lowering its orbit and changing its attitude or tilt, to test the performance of the propellant."

https://www.wired.com/story/a-new-fuel-for-satellites-is-so-safe-it-wont-blow-up-humans/