Boeing Starliner orbital test failure 2

[thebard3]

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft launched today will fail to dock with the ISS as intended. The test apparently failed due to a software error which prevented reaching the proper orbit.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.

 

[thebard3]

"Systems were tested, but more importantly the teams were tested. The hardest parts of this mission were a tremendous success. The Commercial Crew Program is strong."
That sounds like something a government agency would say following a huge disaster.

Brad Waybright

It's all okay as long as it's okay.

 

[Eufalconimorph]

Was Apollo 13 a successful mission?

Apollo 13 was a failure. They didn't land, they didn't perform any of their experiments.

Apollo 13 was NOT a catastrophic failure: they didn't die. Apollo 1 was the catastrophic failure.

There are very often quite a few ways to fail, and only one way to succeed.

 

[Comcokid]

If you read some of the details of many missions, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle program - you will find many incidences of failures that came really, really close to disaster - but not quite. Some of these 'failures' were only discovered when the vehicle returned. Makes me wonder sometimes how may system failures went completely undiscovered because in the end that system was never used, or if used was never pushed to it's limit, and that failure was part of a stage or module that never returned to Earth.

One example. Apollo 13 was discovered to actually have cracks in it's heat shield. Something they worried about during re-entry for the mission. But cracks were discovered in the heat shield only in the late 1990's when the capsule was totally disassembled for the first time to be refurbished and restored for display in the US after years of display in France. It is not known if they heat shield was cracked during the mission, or during handling in subsequent years. Core plugs were drilled from the heat shield after the mission, but they did not intercept the discovered cracks. Nevertheless, the heat shield was still robust enough to handle Apollo 13 reentry - the highest velocity reentry of the Apollo program.

Another Example: Shuttle mission STS93 in 1999. Multiple failures with the engines and engine computers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6rJpDPxYGU