Failed Starliner mission suffered second ‘near catastrophic’ software bug

NASA plans to conduct more tests with Boeing’s Starliner capsule than originally planned. Last month’s partially failed test revealed another major software flaw that “could have led to a catastrophe.”

That said the American space agency during a press conference, which, among others, Spacenews writes about. During the press conference, a NASA security panel described the mistakes made and the progress of the investigation. NASA itself today released the first results of the research into the maiden flight of Starliner. That flight went largely wrong in December last year when the capsule ended up in the wrong orbit. Although the capsule made it back to Earth in one piece, Starliner did not reach its destination of the International Space Station. Now NASA and Boeing say there was another problem that was not previously known. It was a software problem in the Service Module Disposal Sequence, the process by which the service module is dislodged from the capsule before it comes back to Earth. Not many details are known about the exact nature of the problem. The safety panel announced that the error was discovered by the ground team during the test flight. That could fix the error on the spot. “If this anomaly had not been corrected during flight, it would have led to unnecessary ignition of the propulsion system and uncontrolled movement during the ejection of the service module,” study researcher Paul Hill said at the press conference. “That could potentially have led to a catastrophic failure in the spacecraft.”

Due to the two software flaws that caused the mission to almost completely fail, NASA’s security panel recommends a more thorough investigation of the capsule. In particular, Boeing’s verification process needs to be looked at more closely. That should happen before NASA does a formal flight readiness review of the capsule, before a second test flight without astronauts takes place. Boeing previously indicated that it is setting aside $410 million for a second test flight. The company hopes that it can take place at the end of February.