A NASA safety panel is recommending a review of Boeing’s software verification processes after revealing there was a second software problem during a CST-100 Starliner test flight that could have led to a “catastrophic” failure.Boeing seems to be betting that they'll have to refly the unmanned test flight to the ISS. Whether or not that would even happen this year is debatable.
That new software problem, not previously discussed by NASA or Boeing, was discussed during a Feb. 6 meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel that examined the December uncrewed test flight of Starliner that was cut short by a timer error.
That anomaly was discovered during ground testing while the spacecraft was in orbit, panel member Paul Hill said. “While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone uncorrected, it would have led to erroneous thruster firings and uncontrolled motion during [service module] separation for deorbit, with the potential for a catastrophic spacecraft failure,” he said.
Boeing's response, so far, has been mostly been smoke and misdirection and has been that way for well over a decade.
What the hell is going on over at Boeing.
ReplyDeleteTwelve dollar an hour computer programmers that don't don't anything about airplanes.
ReplyDeleteMy WAG is that its the beancounting McDonnell Douglas management. Read this:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/the-case-against-boeing
[Sorscher, a Boeing engineer] made his case to a Wall Street analyst in Seattle, arguing that bottom-line business models did not apply to building airplanes. The analyst cut him off. “You think you’re different,” he said, according to Scorcher. “This business model works for everyone. It works for ladies’ garments, for running shoes, for hard drives, for integrated circuits, and it will work for you.”
Taken aback, Sorscher said, “Let’s build an airliner with this business model. If it works, you and everyone who looks like you will be happy. And if I’m right, then we’ll all be very unhappy.”
It is known as " counting pennies, while dollars fly by"
ReplyDeleteSeems to be Boeings modis operandi these days.
While placing blame at the bottom.
Tho the CEO and CFO will get huge bonuses for counting those pennies.
So goes Amurikan manufacturing...