On the 26th local time, Musk, the founder of SpaceX, forwarded a message about Boeing on the social platform "X" and commented that "the CEO of an aircraft manufacturing company should know how to build an airplane, not how to make a table".
It is reported that Musk is referring to the chief executive officer (CEO) of Boeing, Dave Calhoun, who has a business background but no engineering background. Calhoun announced in March that he would step down at the end of 2024.
Musk's criticism of Boeing's top brass comes as the aircraft manufacturing company is going through a new round of crisis.
▲ "Starliner" data map
According to CCTV News, NASA announced on the 21st that due to the need for further review of technical issues, NASA and Boeing said that the return of Boeing's "Starliner" spacecraft to Earth was postponed indefinitely. According to the report, the postponement has raised concerns about Boeing's first manned space mission, and it will also make Boeing itself and NASA face a major crisis of confidence in the future.
The return date of the US astronauts is uncertain
Let SpaceX go and pick up the Earth back?
It has been learned that the original mission time of the manned test flight of the "starliner" was eight days. However, due to the failure of some of the thrusters and the helium leakage of the propulsion system, the return date of the two astronauts was first postponed to June 26. After the NASA high-level meeting, the return date was adjusted to July.
▲The "Starliner" was launched on June 5
The report pointed out that before the launch, engineers detected a helium leak in the "Starliner", but believed that the leak was very small and would not affect the launch. According to reports, the main role of helium is to push the propellant into the thruster system. However, after the launch into the sky, the "starliner" had four more helium leaks. In addition, 5 of its 28 thrusters stopped operating as they approached the station, and 4 of them restarted.
"If everything is perfectly prepared before a test flight, the time and money costs will be very high." Adam Baker, the head of a British aerospace company, said he understood that NASA and Boeing had launched a "starliner" despite discovering a helium leak, "I don't think they were fully considering the worst-case scenario." ”
Simeon Barber, an American space science expert, believes that the focus of this manned test flight should be to test the astronauts' mastery of the aircraft. "But we're still dealing with the most basic issues, and NASA needs to reflect on why it didn't address them after the first two test flights."
Barber believes that for NASA, what needs to be determined now is the root cause of the helium leak and thruster failure. NASA said engineers hope to study the spacecraft before it re-enters the atmosphere to find out the cause of the failure. However, some analysts say that during the process of returning to the atmosphere, some components of the spacecraft will be burned out, and key data may be lost.
"The astronauts are not trapped, and we guarantee that if something goes wrong with the ISS, the astronauts can return to Earth." NASA stressed that the helium leak would not pose a risk to astronauts. Adam Baker said that taking 10,000 steps back, the two astronauts could return to Earth on a SpaceX spacecraft, but that could be very embarrassing for Boeing.
It lasted nearly 5 years
Boeing's "spaceship path" is riddled with thorns
To fill the gap in the country's manned space space following the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA announced in 2014 that it had signed a "groundbreaking contract" with Boeing and SpaceX that would allow U.S. astronauts to travel between the U.S. and the International Space Station on their spacecraft, ending the embarrassing years of U.S. reliance on Russian spacecraft for astronaut transportation.
In March 2019, SpaceX's Dragon manned spacecraft was the first to carry a dummy for a test flight, and in May 2020, NASA astronauts were sent into space for the first time. At this point, the United States got rid of its dependence on Russian ships. Subsequently, NASA was desperate for Boeing's Starliner to become the second commercial transportation system for the United States to the space station, because it needed two transportation systems that could be guaranteed to operate in case one of the systems suddenly failed.
▲ The two astronauts on board the "Starliner".
Boeing's road to manned spacecraft development is full of challenges. In December 2019, the Starliner began its first test flight, but engineers soon discovered that the Starliner's main engines did not start on time, and they thought there was a problem with the spacecraft's software system.
In August 2021, after nearly a year of postponement from the original plan, the Starliner was finally ready to launch again. Just after the spacecraft had been installed with the rocket and sent to the launch pad, engineers found problems with several of the spacecraft's propulsion valves during a pre-launch inspection. Due to the failure of on-site repairs, Boeing decided to return the spacecraft to the factory and cancel the test flight.
In May 2022, the Starliner flew again. During the test flight, the spacecraft's orbital maneuver and attitude control thrusters malfunctioned. During re-entry, communication between one of the spacecraft's navigation systems and GPS satellites was interrupted.
After two test flights, the Starliner ushered in its last test - a manned flight, however, on June 1, 2023, Boeing announced that the test flight was postponed indefinitely due to problems with the spacecraft's parachute system and the flammable tape used in the discovery of wires on the spacecraft.
Boeing was scheduled to conduct a manned flight test on May 6, 2024, but the launch was cancelled two hours before the scheduled launch time due to a problem with the rocket's oxygen valve. Finally, on June 5, the Starliner flew into space with two American astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, on board. Who would have thought that the helium leakage problem that occurred this time made it impossible for astronauts to return to Earth on time. (Source: Red Star News)