Updates Boeing's CST-100 Starliner

Thunder Chicken

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Is Boeing doing Agile software development or something - shipping minimally functioning software and letting the customer beta test it in the field? That's no bueno in human spaceflight. NASA needs to lift the lid and check them over.
 

Urwumpe

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Is Boeing doing Agile software development or something - shipping minimally functioning software and letting the customer beta test it in the field? That's no bueno in human spaceflight. NASA needs to lift the lid and check them over.


If it would be agile software development, the resulting software artifact would be tested....



Especially if they would be doing Continuous Delivery. (Which you want to do as developer, for your own sanity and health)
 

Donamy

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Unfortunately, if the media gets involved with this, and start raising doubt about the entire manned program, the bureaucrats are gonna probably demand an investigation, which will stop the whole show. JMHO
 

garyw

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NASA has basically admitted that they don't trust Boeing to be honest and transparent about any issues with Starliner, especially software.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/boeings-starliner-problems-may-be-worse-than-we-thought/

Do you blame them? They covered up two serious issues because they said they had "fixed them", never mind that these issues occurred on orbit.

It's like the pre-challenger and pre-columbia days of NASA, the normalisation of deviance.
 

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It's like the pre-challenger and pre-columbia days of NASA, the normalisation of deviance.
Actually, looking at this and also the 737 issues, it looks like Boeing has cut both the "testing" and the "reliability" corners of their systems, in order to meet temporal or financial deadlines, or both.
 

MaverickSawyer

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Actually, looking at this and also the 737 issues, it looks like Boeing has cut both the "testing" and the "reliability" corners of their systems, in order to meet temporal or financial deadlines, or both.

This is precisely the problem. And short of a wholesale replacement of the company's entire management structure and taking the company off the stock market... it's going to continue to remain a major problem.
 

GLS

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This is precisely the problem. And short of a wholesale replacement of the company's entire management structure and taking the company off the stock market... it's going to continue to remain a major problem.

They fired the CEO sometime after the flight... and gave him $62M... :facepalm:
 

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Sometimes it's better to fire a CEO -and give them their contracted money- than to keep them -and give them their contracted money-
 

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Boeing Dropped The Ball Again - And NASA Let Them
Critically, the panel learned early this month that Boeing did not perform a full, end-to-end integrated test of Starliner in a Systems Integration Lab with ULA's Atlas V rocket.
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2020/02/boeing-dropped.html

(the original article is geo-blocked for Europe)
 

PhantomCruiser

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Wow.... just... wow... :(
The more I think about it I wish Sierra Nevada and SpaceX would have won the contracts. I mean I wish they won to begin with, but I wonder if it would have resulted in better spacecraft overall. Boeing has always been a powerhouse, but they are relying on a tradidtion of reliability that is decades old. Proven? Yes. Proven recently? No. Apollo's last assembly was decades ago.

We all knew that SpaceX would be under a microscope, and that Elon's predictions would slip to the right. Dreamchaser would have been no different (I don't believe). And I really do want to see the BOR-4/HL-20/Dreamchaser to fly.

I do think this will result in a better capsule/spacecraft. But it's something that shouldn't have happened. Boeing should receive the same scrutiny as SpaceX, the "proven" history is a thing of the past. Particularly with an all new design.

Just my $0.02



Boeing Dropped The Ball Again - And NASA Let Them
Critically, the panel learned early this month that Boeing did not perform a full, end-to-end integrated test of Starliner in a Systems Integration Lab with ULA's Atlas V rocket.
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2020/02/boeing-dropped.html

(the original article is geo-blocked for Europe)
 

MaverickSawyer

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Boeing should have been receiving similar scrutiny anyways, regardless of "legacy"... and especially after the MAX crashes.
 

Urwumpe

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Boeing should have been receiving similar scrutiny anyways, regardless of "legacy"... and especially after the MAX crashes.


"Legacy" is always a reason to panic. Does somebody remember the first flight of the Ariane 5? Legacy software.
 

Donamy

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Do you think Boeing would take some advice from SpaceX ? :rofl:
 

PhantomCruiser

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Do you think Boeing would take some advice from SpaceX ? :rofl:

Nope. I think they "suffer" the same institutional arrogance that all mega-corporations have.
 
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not putting a lot of faith in Boeing's software, seeing their corporate practices in hiring coders and engineers trying to maximize profit
 
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