https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/05/boeing-starliner-crew-launch.html
Boeing launched its first Starliner flight with astronauts on Wednesday, beginning a crucial final flight test of the long-delayed spacecraft.
I thought all these planes were crashing because they didn't have enough 737-MAX parts. Like some bolts and screws missing here and there...
Nah the crashes were due to criminal negligence by Boeing when they added control and navigation features that the pilots weren't trained on how to use, how to disable, or even the fact that these new features existed. They also made the new automatic control feature (called MCAS) reliant on a single sensor. Guess what, then they had sensor failures on that single point of failure and the planes flew themselves into the ground while the pilots had no idea what was going on. Oh and the warning lights that would tell the pilots that something was wrong? Optional equipment, sold by Boeing. Neither of the carriers whose planes crashed had purchased that 'optional' safety package.
The lack of parts issue blew out a door in flight, but the plane didn't crash and nobody was killed thankfully. But that started the investigation that showed how badly Boeing has been fucking up safety inspections for years now.
This is a good article explaining the crashes which should have put several Boeing executives in prison. https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/22/18275736/boeing-737-max-plane-crashes-grounded-problems-info-details-explained-reasons
A little surprising considering there was a helium valve leak they detected like a month ago that caused a scrub, but decided it wasn't worth taking it apart to fix, just send it and it will probably be fine.
They investigated it and found out that the thrusters wouldn't stop working unless there were 3 more leaks of that size, or a single leak of 100x that size.
The affected thruster system is the backup for the backup for the system they actually use to maneuver.
Oh I'm aware of how small the issue is in comparison. It's just ridiculous that there is an issue like this at this point. They're almost a decade behind schedule, and received nearly double the funding of their direct competitor who has launched their comparable system nearly 30 times, with 13 crewed launches. They were supposed" to be the faster and more reliable option because of their legacy history, instead they've just shown that they really cannot compete in the modern launch market.
We need multiple options for redundancy, safety, and lowering or removing reliance on foreign launch capabilities... and this is just a terrible option in comparison.