Alain Fournier <
alain245@videotron.ca> wrote:
The US now has two independent launch systems to ferry astronauts
between Earth and LEO.
Given that the hydrogen leak is back and getting worse I think we need
to wait quite a bit more before we know if it'll be "operational" at
the end but I consider that relatively unlikely at this point.
Now, it also seems unlikely to get bad enough to require emergency
measure like stranding the austronauts up there until another
(Dragon?) capsule can be sent up but I do expect Starline system will
be grounded for a while after the landing.
I expect that Boeing will be required to figure out what went wrong
and propose out a set of remedial actions, get NASA (and possibly FAA)
approval for them and then apply them - similar to how SpaceX has
worked on Starship & SuperHeavy.
At which point Starliner either finally become operational OR Boeing
need to do yet another test flight if the changes are big enough - I
doubt this will happen but it's *possible*.
If one of the two must be grounded, the other one can step up to
replace it.
That sounds more like 2025 and 2024...
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