Updates Boeing's CST-100 Starliner

Now that is interesting. Butch reports that during BECO yesterday, it felt like being catapulted during staging on top of the Saturn V, as often reported by the Apollo guys back then. He added that it was maybe not exactly like that, but felt like being pushed into zero g. "That was cool!" he said to CAPCOM 😂 Guess because he only knows the Shuttle, which had its main engines running all the way up.

There could probably be no better commander for that mission. I like that guy. He is a real pilot/test pilot who loves his job. Too bad I have to stop listening and go to work now :cautious:
 
TheShuttleExperience said:
Guess because he only knows the Shuttle, which had its main engines running all the way up.
Click to expand...
The Shuttle had requirements on thrust decay, in order to limit stresses, so the SSMEs had to shutdown "softly" to comply. Perhaps the RD-180 is a bit less soft...?

BTW: he also flow Soyuz.
 
GLS said:
The Shuttle had requirements on thrust decay, in order to limit stresses, so the SSMEs had to shutdown "softly" to comply. Perhaps the RD-180 is a bit less soft...?

BTW: he also flow Soyuz.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the transition from powered flight to free fall was probably the smoothest on the Shuttle. One could see the seats moving slowly forward shortly before MECO.

But Butch was talking about BECO. They were thrown back into their seats when the engine of the Centaur ignited after BECO and booster sep. That would be the equivalent of SRB sep on the Shuttle. The main engines provided continuous powered flight while the SRBs burned out slowly, which I guess is very different to cut off and staging on a "normal"/usual launch vehicle. You lose the forward momentum before staging. On the Shuttle it was actually the opposite I guess: once the SRBs burned out, the ride became very smotth 🤷‍♂️

Thanks for pointing out Soyuz.
 
Hatch opening in progress.
 
barrygolden said:
thanks I wasn't sure looked like it was at JSC
Click to expand...
Well, the rooms at JSC are actually quite distinctive, both the two old ones and the two newer ones. But things really become a little bit more complicated/complex these days. At Johnson they use one of the old rooms for controlling the ISS plus one of the newer ones as mission control for Starliner (and the other one for Artemis I think). And then there are two more rooms, at least, I think, at the Cape; one for the Atlas V and one for Starliner, operated by Boeing. I got actually confused during the prelaunch coverage because one could see three different rooms 😅 Things become more complicated when they change rooms in case the other one gets updates... These days one has to google it actually. During earlier days one could just have a look at NASA TV or at photos. There was just one firing room in the launch control center (one of four at a time) and one room used at mission control.

By the way, also interesting: SpaceX hired firing room 4 in the launch control center at KSC for controlling their launches from 39 A, while their mission control is in California... 🤯

EDIT: all that stuff is actually quite interesting. Especially if one looks at the whole picture of NASA. Its infrastructure is unlike any other space agency or whatsoever I think. Let alone places like the Goddard Space Flight Center or KSC.
 
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