The Starliner computer issue was a power supply fault and they swapped in a spare computer. The next delay was a helium leak and they not only didn't solve it but the capsule has not made it to the station yet and TWO MORE helium leaks have developed. They have been stopped apparently by disabling the leaking valves.
Not inspiring confidence in me. They couldn't pay be enough to ride on it.
Another delay in return.
They have been doing more tests and plan to ignite (TWICE) 7 of the 8 aft thrusters. The helium leaks are up to FIVE now.
Not inspiring confidence. Best of luck to the astronauts if they fly back in this capsule rather than have a Dragon rescue sent up.
The thrusters being tested failed during docking maneuvers. All but one of them now seem to be functional. The last uncrewed flight had failures in the thrusters as well (on the 3rd and last backup by the end of the mission as I recall) so it looks like their fix didn't work very well.
The return has now been pushed out to the 26th to continue with more testing. Best wishes for the crew and hopefully NASA won't allow them to return without a high degree of confidence in their survival.
I just noticed that IFT5 is now being listed for July (so likely August?). Should be Booster 12 and Starship 30.
Still listing July. The Starship unit is having the entire heat shield stripped down and replaced. They are adding a ablative layer (under the tiles) and "stronger" (in what way is unclear) tiles. Some reports can be interpretted that the tiles will be more variable with thinner tiles in low risk areas and thicker ones in high risk.
They also have indicated that the other flaps had issues as well but mostly the forward flaps.
Still no clear statement as to if they will attempt a catch of the booster. It occurs to me that part of the reason for removing the old tank farm is that it gives them a clear area to drop the booster on site if the catch fails by hovering just above ground till the fuel runs out minimizing explosion issues. There is a berm around the tower side at least so there would be some limitation on where the debris could go if it breaks up. Here is hoping that the flight (and catch if attempted) will be flawless.
Permits for construction related to Starship in Florida indicate TWO towers one of which is labelled as "Catch Tower". With needing to catch both stages two towers need to be available only one of which needs to be a full launch tower. So it looks like my repeated statements that they should have a catch only tower are coming true.
UPDATE:The Block 2 Superheavy booster will not have 33 Raptor engines but 35 as well as being taller to contain more fuel.
NEW GLENN: Still scheduled for the end of September. The most interesting thing I've come across recently is that Bezos has made a reference to trying to make a much cheaper expendable 2nd stage (previously indicated that their current design CANNOT be profitable without a reusable 2nd stage).
I wonder if they have found out what I have long suspected SpaceX of discovering when they worked on making the Falcon 9 2nd stage reusable (and gave up) namely that the minimum practical size is much larger, perhaps even Starship sized. If so then New Glenn is too small by far to make a practical reusable 2nd stage.
I wonder if they will ever announce anything more about New Armstrong? Will it be a Starship clone? The BE-4 engines MIGHT be suitable especially if they were given more refinement to decrease the mass. They still need their engine factory and to use the same engine for both stages.
Blue Origin has for unclear reasons been allowed to bid on the next round of military launches (covering till 2029) even though they still haven't made even one orbital launch attempt and I am not confident that they will do so this year. The other two are naturally SpaceX and ULA.
Waiting for the next big event.
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