Unusual news blackout following malfunction during Boeing spacecraft's test flight

Comments from NASA Watch (private website) commenting about the unusual news blackout following the launch problem today:

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2019/12/boeings-starlin.html

One thing that was rather odd today: as soon as things started to go wrong NASA went dark. No TV, no meaningful updates. They said to go visit Boeing's website which had no information. After a couple of hours information started to emerge - not from NASA PAO or Boeing but from Jim Bridenstine's personal Twitter account. Indeed @NASA and @BoeingSpace were mostly mute. It is certainly good that the NASA Administrator has the personal capability and intent to inform the public what is going on. But I have to say that in the 25 years I have been covering NASA I have never seen such a news blackout drop into place for a launch or landing - and that includes the loss of Columbia. Of course this is Boeing's mission so NASA is somewhat in the back seat in terms of PR.

Technical information about the spacecraft's trajectory and orbit following the late orbital insertion burn, from Jonathan McDowell:

https://www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/latest.html

On Dec 20 ULA launched flight AV-080, the first Atlas V N22, from Cape Canaveral, The N22 has two solid boosters, a dual engine Centaur with two RL10-A4-1 engines (the first DEC to fly since 2004) and carries the Boeing Starliner spaceship. AV-080's Centaur reached its targeted 73 x 181 km x 51.6 deg orbit. The Starliner, vehicle S/N 3, separated at 1150 UTC. It was meant to fire its Aerojet Rocketdyne OMAC thrusters at 1207 UTC to raise its orbit, but due to a software timing error this did not occur. A contingency burn was finally commanded by the ground, probably at around 1216 UTC, and placed Starliner in a 180 x 221 km x 51.6 deg orbit. During the period before the burn, Starliner was in an incorrect software state and used up too much propellant controlling its attitude, precluding the planned rendezvous with ISS. At this writing the current plan is to perform 20 m/s orbit raising burns at 1830 and 1925 UTC Dec 20, carry out some on orbit tests, and land at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, at about 1230 UTC Dec 22.

Explanation of the anomaly:

The rocket (Atlas Centaur) is intended to throw the spacecraft onto an initial trajectory that coasts up to high altitude (over the opposite side of Earth) about a half-hour after liftoff, then falls back down towards the atmosphere. The spacecraft itself must fire its own rockets at the high point in that trajectory to remain in space (this rocket firing, called the orbital insertion burn, adds a little energy so it doesn't coast back down.) Due to the Boeing spacecraft malfunction, the spacecraft didn't attempt the orbital insertion burn, so it started coasting back down again. Also, whatever the spacecraft was doing (its computers were confused) were burning up unnecessary propellant maintaining its orientation in space. Ground control finally was able to override the computer and force the spacecraft to fire its thrusters enough to make orbit, but it's quite the intended orbit and its propellant tanks are lower than expected, so it can't complete a rendezvous and docking with the space station (a primary mission objective). It's expected that the spacecraft can return to Earth, and will do so when its trajectory passes over the landing site in New Mexico, perhaps as early as Sunday (a longer flight is possible.)

>>7573306

Most people don't think about orbital insertion all that much, so the words can be meaningless. I'll try to give some context so the anomaly makes sense. Douglas Adams explained it best, launch is like throwing yourself at the Earth and missing.

Imagine tossing a baseball in the air. It will go up, and come down. Toss it up and towards the east, and it will fly some distance downrange before it comes down. Toss it really fast and, between launch and landing, the curvature of the Earth will make the Earth go noticeably "down" too, relative to the starting point. Orbit is when the Earth is falling away as fast as the ball falls down. Spacecraft falls ten feet, and during that time it's zoomed so far forwards that the planet's curvature has bent the surface down the same ten feet.

The Atlas Centaur rocket puts the spacecraft in a trajectory that goes up hundreds of miles while flying downrange so fast that you're on the opposite side of Earth by the time you get that high. But like the baseball example it falls back down, coming back to the atmosphere after making a full loop around the planet.

Orbital insertion is a small kick that's done at the high point in the trajectory. Imagine if the baseball had a rocket that could fire at the high point in the throw, making it go a little faster forward. This circularizes the orbit, so it won't fall down. It's not merely a matter of adding extra velocity, the magic here also involves the direction of motion, and this thrust can't be done in the initial launch. (Adding speed then would make you coast higher when going up, but you'd still come back down.) Anything in a coasting trajectory will eventually wind up at the altitude at which the last thrust was applied (unless it's going so fast it escapes Earth's gravity entirely and flies into interplanetary space), so to stay in orbit the last thrust has to be applied at the high point of the initial trajectory. This is why all spacecraft going into low Earth orbit (shuttle, etc) have a small orbital insertion firing about 30-45 minutes after liftoff, well after the rocket itself is done with the launch (that usually takes about 5-10 minutes.) And that small rocket firing well after launch is where Boeing's flight went wrong.

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