Boeing Starliner Capsule "Trapped in Space"?

[Ross365]

It was a problem with the main engine that delayed it getting to orbit after launch, but I don't think it will have been used after that.

Pretty sure that the current HS-702 satellites use xenon thrusters for routine adjustments ("station-keeping"), so there will be a large tank of pressurised xenon gas in it somewhere (as well as the pressurised tanks for the main engine propellant) - I guess it is possible that something damaged one of those tanks that then caused catastrophic failure. ('Anomalies' have been reported with excessive propellant consumption on this satellite, but I don't know the details.)

Yes, is it a 702 series, but according to Wiki, there are a number of variants in that family and the Intelsat 33 was a type 702MP, which uses the very old and conventional combination of dinitrogen tetroxide as the oxidiser and mono-methyl hydrazine fuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_702.
That's a combination that started out on the Gemini project in the mid1960's, and was then used on Apollo and the Shuttle.

Interesting to note that one common component type on both Starliner and Int33 is that the control valves for the propellant are all made by the Moog company. Not long ago, most people would have judged Moog as the most well-proven valve supplier in the world, but these are "interesting times"!

As well as the main engine, which failed early on in the spacecraft's life, all the station-keeping thrusters were made in England. They too ran in to problems after about 6 months in to the 15 year mission, using more propellant than they are supposed to.

 

[Misterg]

702MP, which uses the very old and conventional combination of dinitrogen tetroxide as the oxidiser and mono-methyl hydrazine

My apologies! I thought that they had stopped using hydrazine completely. This is an interesting snippet:

"Intelsat 33e is one of six "EpicNG" satellites built by Boeing, and uses the latter's 720MP satellite platform equipped with 16 hydrazine-powered engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. [...] The first EpicNG satellite, Intelsat 29e, was declared a total loss in 2019 after just three years in service, reportedly due to a meteoroid impact or wiring flaw."

Lightning striking twice?

 

[Ross365]

My apologies! I thought that they had stopped using hydrazine completely. This is an interesting snippet:

"Intelsat 33e is one of six "EpicNG" satellites built by Boeing, and uses the latter's 720MP satellite platform equipped with 16 hydrazine-powered engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. [...] The first EpicNG satellite, Intelsat 29e, was declared a total loss in 2019 after just three years in service, reportedly due to a meteoroid impact or wiring flaw."

Lightning striking twice?

So, Intelsat 29 and 33 and Starliner were all using a propulsion systems built by Aerojet, all with Moog valves, but with different combination of engines/suppliers. But it's all technology that dates back to the 1960's - what's going wrong?

I suspect this week's event will have made the people at NASA very glad they elected to leave the Starliner crew on the ISS!

 

[Misterg]

what's going wrong?

In a word: Greed.

I have seen some of the pressures within the [space] industry and I can see that there is, more than ever, a conflict between engineering excellence and cost. This has (to some extent) always been the case, however the older people who came up with the rules, based on hard won experience and deep insight into the fundamental engineering of what they were doing, who could look people in the eye and explain why it had to be XYZ are retiring.

Space stuff always used to be designed by the best people who devised testing that would probe the weaknesses in the system. Failure would be engineered out, and once something was proven to work in service, YOU DID NOT CHANGE IT. This even extended to the brand of lollipop stick used to stir the glue (I kid you not!). It seems to me that now, it's only 'passing the test' that matters, and 'because nothing has ever gone wrong the testing is probably over the top'. There are, of course, still excellent Engineers, but I suspect that some of the fundamentals might have got lost, and they are not as well equipped to rebut "cost saving ideas" as satellite building moves from a cottage industry to production line manufacturing.

I also think that the Boeing organisation stinks. It seems to completely lack any sort of integrity, driven only by short-term financial goals.

Just my 2p though.

 

[Ross365]

I worked in the UK business that is now owned by the Norwegians and makes the LEROS engines, as per the original failure of Intelsat33. When I first went there in 1986, it was a Government lab which had just been privatised by Mrs Thatcher, becoming part of the newly created Royal Ordnance Group (RO). Soon after, the whole of the RO group (consisting of 14 sites scattered across the country) was sold for very little money to British Aerospace. Subsequently, the rocket engine business was sold by BAe to the Americans who eventually sold it to the Norwegians.

I'm long since retired, but the terrible fact is that all of the companies that I worked for, in various engineering sectors, are long gone. Companies that were major UK employers, like Plessey and GEC, are names which few can remember now . I'm sure that some people did very well out of it.

 

[minimutly]

I worked in the UK business that is now owned by the Norwegians and makes the LEROS engines, as per the original failure of Intelsat33. When I first went there in 1986, it was a Government lab which had just been privatised by Mrs Thatcher, becoming part of the newly created Royal Ordnance Group (RO). Soon after, the whole of the RO group (consisting of 14 sites scattered across the country) was sold for very little money to British Aerospace. Subsequently, the rocket engine business was sold by BAe to the Americans who eventually sold it to the Norwegians.

I'm long since retired, but the terrible fact is that all of the companies that I worked for, in various engineering sectors, are long gone. Companies that were major UK employers, like Plessey and GEC, are names which few can remember now . I'm sure that some people did very well out of it.

When I finished my apprenticeship I went to see, and was offered a job at BAe Stevenage, about 5 of us went to visit them, maybe one took up the offer?? Long time ago. How different would life have been...

 

[Ross365]

When I finished my apprenticeship I went to see, and was offered a job at BAe Stevenage, about 5 of us went to visit them, maybe one took up the offer?? Long time ago. How different would life have been...

Interesting; BAe had two huge sites at Stevenage, "Space Systems" and "Missile Dynamics". BAe sold Space to Matra-Marconi who eventually passed it on and it is now part of Airbus. For a while, it seemed almost certain that it would close and the work be transferred to Germany, but it has survived and now looks to have a good future. Missile Dynamics is now called MBDA, which is a European group in which BAe has a share. They seem to be doing OK now, probably bolstered by events in Ukraine.