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NASA indefinitely delays return of Starliner to review propulsion data (arstechnica.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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“We are letting the data drive our decision."

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Do they have enough seats up there without starliner to get everyone down?

I assume they could just stay up there until another Dragon/Soyuz launch if they don't trust starliner?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Maybe? Soyuz is too cramped, but Dragon might be able to fit extra people. A few years ago a NASA astronaut flew up on a leaky Soyuz, so they looked at using Dragon as a lifeboat:

https://www.space.com/nasa-spacex-dragon-rescue-spacecraft-soyuz-leak

Dragon was drawn up to fit 7 people, with 3 seats on the bottom and 4 on top. They ended up changing the seat angles for reentry, so now they only have 4.

Starliner is still their emergency ride home in case a real alarm goes off, but they want to study the leak issue as much as possible before they separate their service module, which burns up during reentry.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Are the docking adaptors male/female or interchangeable? Could they do a dragon/dragon docking manoeuvre if they all had to jump in there?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The docking adapters look pretty much the same (interlocking petals, not male/female) and can be active, passive, or both, but Dragon's is only active. Active has to dock to passive, so two Dragons couldn't dock.

SpaceX developed a new one that can be active or passive for Starship, which will have to dock with Orion and the Lunar Gateway.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-spacex-test-starship-lunar-lander-docking-system/