Boeing Starliner could brick ISS docking port if crew abandons it

https://jalopnik.com/boeing-starliner-could-brick-iss-docking-port-if-crew-a-1851615463

by CommieBobDole • 2 years ago

62 100 2 years ago

This is just getting worser and worser. Boeing needs to get its shit in place or stop doing moon shots. Imagine if this happens on mars, #BringbackBoeing

arthurcolle• 2 years ago

too big to fail for airlines/ space companies. It is crazy how this has played out and its just like not even considered in the larger picture of their airplanes falling out of the sky.

whywhywhywhy• 2 years ago

This farce felt like it had very generous damage control around it in the press. Hard to view that in a vacuum when you consider the press' dislike of SpaceX because it shares a owner with Twitter and the removal of the Bluecheck privileges.

bunderbunder2• 2 years ago

I'm getting rather disillusioned with that phrase. The one immutable constant of being "too big to fail" is that it guarantees failure.

JTbane• 2 years ago

IMO they're not to big to fail. The gov't could force a breakup into military vs civilian vs space. Yes, this would be a huge win for Airbus and the like but the buck needs to stop somewhere.

gonzo41• 2 years ago

Imagine if this happens on mars.....

You know, like half of star trek is looking for lost crew and ships that have gone astray. People shipping off to mars and beyond are going to have to solve their own problems or just die.

vardump• 2 years ago

You'd hopefully have several launch vehicles ready to return to Earth on Mars at different geographical locations.

ChocolateGod• 2 years ago

Boeing need to stop being given contracts, from the Starliner issues on top of the various scandals with the quality control of their planes, it's clear to see they have no value in human life.

ActionHank• 2 years ago

Boeing execs should be held criminally accountable for their leadership that has resulted in this mess.

People should be in prison.

teamspirit• 2 years ago

Why does it feel like we don’t have criminal responsibility (well, accountability) here in the US? So much criminal wrongdoing and the company just pays a fine and everything continues as usual.

Tyr42• 2 years ago

Or you could send them to space in their craft.

9659• 2 years ago

incompetence and poor leadership is not a crime.

kkfx• 2 years ago

You can't fix Boeing or any other industry with punishments, the flaw is in the financial system of all the west. Some companies suffer more, some less, but their fate will be the same.

A small example: most battery-powered hand tools (drills and co) use 18-21V lithium batteries, with the same connectors for all manufacturers, as a result you can buy some tools from one brand, some from others and swap batteries issueless. We do the very opposite, not only some vendors even insert a small "intelligence" in batteries to impede the use with tools not identify as belonging from the same registered buyer, formally "to avoid stealing" etc. Car parts are the same.

A working industrial system need open standards for interoperability and competition, need a universal school systems where most R&D are public and the private sector pick ideas from them. So marketed ideas are good for users, not for some vendors against their customers. We have had essentially that in the past, when all westerns economies was working well. We have abandoned that to fully go financial. Current state of thing where an entry level BEV from China cost ~9000€ in Thailand and the very ~40.000€ in the EU. We still have some high-tech dominance, but not for long and not without automotive and mid-tech mass industries in general. We can only recover ANNIHILATING private-public partnerships, putting back well funded public research based on research and development goals not short-term profits, stating clear to the private sector: you can loose talents for the public or starting to follow the new-old system.

This should been able to fix in a decade or so, if the WWWIII get postponed. In a shorter timeframe I doubt anything better than the current disaster could be done.

markus_zhang2• 2 years ago

Boeing probably has a lot of politicians in their pockets. And it is one of the largest defense companies. And NASA needs at least two for competition. So I don't think it's going to change much. But I do agree that NASA should reward more contracts to SpaceX until Boeing proves its competence.

wongarsu4• 2 years ago

In the selection for the commercial crew program they chose Boeing's Starliner as the safe bet and SpaceX's Crew Dragon add the alternative from the newcomer.

In future bids SpaceX can seamlessly take the role of the experienced company with track record, and thanks to SpaceX's success there are plenty of startups bidding to take the role of the innovative alternative.

Boeing's position in defence and aerospace is very safe, but to keep their space division running they will have to let that lobbying shine

yieldcrv2• 2 years ago

The only reason they got the space contract was so that the US Government wasnt relying on just Space X

The US govt is now relying on just Space X

snotrockets5• 2 years ago

Solve two birds with one stone and nationalize SpaceX.

euroderf• 2 years ago

If corporations are people, can't we execute the serial murderers ?

Human grief in, human relief out.

Xen9• 2 years ago

They are a defense contractor. We should give them more contracts! Then they will fuck, and not get the defense contracts.

lenerdenator2• 2 years ago

How's the share price?

lenerdenator2• 2 years ago

lol getting downvoted for asking the only question that matters to the people actually making a decision at Boeing.

hansvm• 2 years ago

Hypothetically, if a private citizen bricked the ISS, what would my consequences be?

BSDobelix2• 2 years ago

You have to fix it, first you have to quit your job, then astronaut training, then you are shipped to Russia, put on a Soyuz flight to the ISS and fix what you have damaged.

chrisandchris2• 2 years ago

Well, if you're flying Soyus at least you have a chance of coming back. Not so if you fly Boeing, as it seems.

candiddevmike• 2 years ago

Isn't the ISS going to be decommissioned soon anyways?

robin_reala• 2 years ago

“Soon” is still 6+ years away.

Archelaos• 2 years ago

No. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#En...

markus_zhang2• 2 years ago

Curiously, is it possible to brick something on ISS remotely? I'm sure there is a lot of communications between ISS and earth.

Aloha2• 2 years ago

I get that there is probably a desire to solely blame Boeing for this - but this seems like as much of a Project Management and integration failure on the NASA side, as it does Boeing putting defective hardware/software into orbit.

It shouldn't have been allowed to happen, period.

I get that what I said will not be popular, but this has been the consensus of every previous thread on this topic that I've seen - NASA is sorta playing the role of a systems integrator here, and assumes the liability for defective components from their subcontractors, and has the ultimate supervision authority to decide if something can or cannot fly.

darby_nine2• 2 years ago

I get that there is probably a desire to solely blame Boeing for this

I'm sorry, where do you see this impulse? I'm just not following.

Aloha2• 2 years ago

every previous thread this has come up, essentially.

chrisandchris2• 2 years ago

I agree it shouldn't have happened.

Boeing removed the Starliner’s autonomous undocking feature from its software. The aerospace manufacturer wants to push a software update to the spacecraft in orbit, but NASA fears it could do more damage.

I'm very far away from NASA internals, but as I've seen them in the "older" days was that just a _finished_ product went into space and they would not allow to go into space with something they _knew_ required updates in-mission to complete the _original_ mission.

So it seems like a management issue on both sides.

vel0city2• 2 years ago

I think its dumb they couldn't have both software profiles available and be able to choose manual or auto, but the original mission did not call for autonomous undocking.

krisoft• 2 years ago

NASA is sorta playing the role of a systems integrator here

That used to be the case. For example with the Space Shuttles that is how it went.

With the Commercial Crew Program the idea is that they find commercial providers who take their astronauts where the astronauts has to be when the astronauts has to be there.

One is like building an experimental aircraft from a set of parts. Where they definietly are the system integration. The other is more like paying for airplane tickets.

To quote from the wikipedia page of the program: "The spacecraft are owned and operated by the vendor, and crew transportation is provided to NASA as a commercial service."

as the ultimate supervision authority to decide if something can or cannot fly.

No. They have the authority to decide if their crew is safe to fly on it or not. But Boeing doesn't need NASA's permission if they just want to fly the Starliner on their own. (As long as they don't fly it with NASA personal, or close to NASA property.)

It is as if you bought a return ticket to fly to some destination and while en-route onwards you heard a death rattle from the engine. Then you have to decide if you trust the company flying you for the return trip, or you find some other way.

netsharc• 2 years ago

It amuses me that of course there's a standard for docking interoperability defined:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Docking_System_S...

And adapters:

The International Docking Adapter (IDA) converts older Russian APAS-95 docking systems to the International Docking System Standard

Imagine flying all the way and then realizing you forgot your adapter...

mysterydip• 2 years ago

Maybe they just need to flip it twice like inserting USB devices.

willhackett• 2 years ago

It's always the second flip

maxcan2• 2 years ago

nope.. its symmetrical about a bunch of axes. at most they'd need a 60 degree rotation, not 180 like USB-A. So this standard is precisely 3x better than USB-A

Gare• 2 years ago

Adapters are installed on the ISS

wolf550e• 2 years ago

The adapters are installed on the station, the vehicles don't carry them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Docking_Adapter

numpad0• 2 years ago

Wasn't this clarified in the teleconference that it only needs "mission load" upload, some sort of script change rather than software rebuild? The Ars article quoted seem to predate the conference. Isn't this kind of a stale news?

eschneider4• 2 years ago

How could they possibly screw up so badly that a SW update would brick the thing? Did they forget the logic to just reboot to last good/factory FW in case of failure?

This feels like the story they're telling isn't the real story because that's just basic, basic shit that gets beaten on all the time during development.

RIMR2• 2 years ago

My theory, given that this claim makes no sense and the article doesn't cite any sources that say anything like this, that this is just bog standard G/O Media blogspam, with bit of misinformation to increase views.

troyvit3• 2 years ago

They site this Ars Technica article: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-likely-to-signifi...

Three separate, well-placed sources have confirmed to Ars that the current flight software on board Starliner cannot perform an automated undocking from the space station and entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

The reasons why the current software can't perform this operation when it could during ground testing are supposition though, and it seems Jolopnik ran with that a little bit.

troyvit3• 2 years ago

I think we're witnessing the enshittification of space.

rvnx• 2 years ago

AI-powered docking system

fragmede• 2 years ago

are we? I know that word has "shit" in it, and this is a degredation of things, and so we want to use the new word so sound like we're cool and hip to the new lingo the kids are using, but the term, as coined by Cory Doctorow, refers to when a platform ends up in late stage capitalism and goes off extracting value from users at the cost of their experience. Like Facebook. Is that what's going on here, or is it just a more general things are shitty?

spankalee• 2 years ago

You're used to consumer software updates that have been tested over literally billions of updates. And they're brilliant - they mostly just work well enough that you don't expect your phone or computer to get bricked during one. But there are rare cases where something goes wrong and they do get bricked. For something like the first ever software update in space, I'd expect the chances of something catastrophic happening would be much higher.

eschneider4• 2 years ago

I'm used to writing bootloaders and firmware update systems for heavy equipment with impatient users who do terrible, terrible things to their hardware. Remote software updates fail all the time, for all sorts of reasons, but the things you need to do to come back up 'no worse than when you started' has been known for years.

If you make any sort of device and your updates can brick the device, you suck at what you do.

btown• 2 years ago

A docking system has many, many moving parts under significant stress, and not all of them are tested under the assumption that arbitrary software could drive their positions/torques beyond assumed limits. You can’t factory-reset metal fatigue after it has happened. It’s quite reasonable for NASA to say “this OTA update has to be tested and QA’d to the most rigorous standards.”

eschneider4• 2 years ago

Absolutely. But I don't believe that's the 'bricking' they referred to.

rasz• 2 years ago

Here a purely factual reenactment of possible scenario featuring Matt Damon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2H1s9gj5DA

RIMR2• 2 years ago

I really want to know how a Starliner software update is going to "brick" the ISS Docking Port. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Jalopnik doesn't really seem like an authoritative source on this, especially since the hyperlink they included when they talk about the "Bricking" issue links to some article about simulated decompression sickness that has nothing to do with the ISS docking port...

devoutsalsa• 2 years ago

Maybe they can just leave it in place, cut a hole in the bottom, and install a new docking port!

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41184359

greenavocado• 2 years ago

On the ground people need to build a jettison rig that they can install inside the Starliner, launch that rig with SpaceX up to the ISS, install the rig, jettison the Starliner, and finally come home with the SpaceX module. Any other way is certain death and the Russians won't help them.

Boeing Starliner could brick ISS docking port if crew abandons it

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