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Elon Musk Offers Boeing SpaceX Batteries For the 787 Dreamliner
An anonymous reader writes "Boeing is currently dealing with a bit of a disaster as the company's 787 Dreamliner has been grounded due to safety concerns. Boeing is currently investigating the situation, but they aren't alone. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has stepped in to offer his help and technology if Boeing wants it. Musk has had to harness battery tech not only to run his Tesla Motors, but also to function flawlessly aboard SpaceX spacecraft as they travel both in and out of the Earth's atmosphere. If you need a battery to work at any altitude, you'd trust Musk to supply one, and that's exactly what he's offering Boeing."
Batteries if you must,
In moving parts trust,
Or with mere soap and a blade,
Be plying your trade.
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
It's the components that hook up to the batteries.
Have to admire the guy.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Great idea...but this won't work. A new battery would require some redesign. All of this would need FAA & EU (forget the agency name) approval. That would take at least 8-12 months. Boeing wants the 787 flying in weeks.
TFA seems a little irrelevant since the news today says that the batteries are not the problem. Instead, the electrical systems and monitoring systems are now being scrutinized.
Here's one article, but the internet is full of it.
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/morning_call/2013/01/batteries-not-a-problem-on-boeing-787.html
As noted the issue was not the batteries, which have passed muster after inspection by the FAA and the NTSB - the focus now is on the charging systems and monitoring systems, as well as the related failure of the containment system.
SpaceX may have a fantastic battery, but they still need to use a charging system designed for charging from a power source that is fairly unreliable in consistency (the four generators on the 787s engines, and the generator on the APU), a power source that is reliable but completely different in power characteristics (ground power), and be FAA certified. Not to mention that it needs to be charged and discharged on a much regular basis than that of a battery used on a booster.
I rather think SpaceX's solution to the charging system is not compatible with that required by regular service usage of the Boeing 787.
The batteries have already been ruled out as the cause of the problems. It's most likely in the charging or temp monitoring systems.
This is just Elon Musk being a bit of an asshole and drumming up publicity.
Investigators have already decided the batteries are not the heart of the problem (no defects found). Instead it is the electronics/software around the batteries that appear to not be working quite right (it would seem). So, is Musk offering a complete control system as well as the SpaceX battery technology? And even if his alternative is workable, how long will it take to certify them for flight?
It would be interesting to know why Boeing didn't choose Tesla in the first place, and selected a Japanese company instead. Maybe because of a "you take our batteries, we buy your planes" deal?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Never waste a crisis.
He is no more of an asshole than any company sponsoring cancer research with its pink ribbons...or any charitable cause. It's both a tax write-off and an image bump.
I guess everybody is an asshole.
At least it was Tesla/SpaceX making the offer, and not Fisker.
Elon knows very well that you can't simply swap out batteries on a passenger jet. The entire system is subject to rigorous (and expensive) certification that would be tossed out the window if you simply started swapping parts. That's to say nothing of the supplier issues.
In any case yesterday I believe Japanese investigators announced that no fault whatsoever was found with the battery, and instead they were looking into the electronics.
This is just a stunt to bolster is company's profile.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I should think that the failure rate of spacecraft would not be acceptable for passenger flight. It would translate one catastrophe every dozen years into several dozen per day.
The quality and reliability specs for FAA far exceeds space craft specs. For FAA passenger safety is the highest factor. For space craft weight is the highest factor. Spacecraft necessarily trade off safety for weight. At least NASA does not have as much cost constraints as private spacecraft consortia. So it would spend what it takes to get high safety at low weight. It would not go about jury-rigging automobile batteries, which themselves were jury-rigged laptop batteries into space craft. To me it looks like a blatant publicity ploy by the SapceX consortium.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
When I first heard of the battery/charging issues. I thought they should contact Tesla Motors and GM's Volt team. Between the three companies they'd work it out.
Elon Musk's actual tweet: "Desire to help Boeing is real & am corresponding w 787 chief engineer. Junod's Esquire article had high fiction content." 3 days ago
All the rest about whoring, nothing if not a PR wiz, it's the wiring and control not the batteries, etc. is all a huge raft of solid bullshit, thanks Slashdot I don't get enough in my day job!!
Look, IANAEE but temperature and voltage control is apparently an integral part of these batteries. Even if the circuit is a 100m away and not inside the battery pack itself, or You can't just say it is the battery he's whoring, etc. Elon Musk has a huge amount of practical experience with this technology and nothing bad can come from offering to talk over their problems with Boeing, as he is doing. Nothing bad except of course, all this crazy dipshit hater stuff, starting apparently with an Esquire article and continuing into slashdot. Probably he could give them an idea of what to look for, or offer an alternate circuit design that is already FAA approved, etc. You'd have to be an idiot to turn down an offer to at least talk. Honestly it is amazing how the crap-fest volume approaches infinity immediately after a rare tweet from Mr. Musk. Who is a guy who actually accomplishes things.
Offering help as a way of dissing your competitor? Kinda tacky, Elon. Reminds me of the old joke:
"How many sopranos does it take to change a light bulb?"
"Two. One to climb the ladder, and the other to say 'if that's too high for you, honey, I'll get it.'"
It must be Musk.
SpaceX may have battery technology that Boeing could use, but this sounds like a sales job to me, and that's being polite. It did get Elon Musk in the news, which I suspect was the real purpose here.
Note that altitude has nothing to do with the battery problems.
The Tesla batteries are individually small units - basically, repurposed laptop batteries stacked together. Tesla does not make them. And, they have been known to have problems, which Tesla has had to engineer around. Putting them in a 787 almost certainly would require serious airframe reengineering, not to mention serious testing. The SpaceX Dragon batteries have to work over a short period, for about 45 minutes at a stretch. That is a rather different part of parameter space from the batteries in the 787, which have to work for repeated flights, I am sure for at least months at a time. And, of course, it's not just that the batteries have to work, it's that they have to provide sufficient power and fit in the allotted space. Not to mention that I doubt Tesla actually makes them either.
Tesla / SpaceX may well have relevant technology and expertise, and I could see them putting in a tender to get Boeing's business. I can't see them swooping in as saviors.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/07/tesla_roadster_recall/
Rockets and spacecrafts are considered experimental vehicles by the standard of the aerospace industry. They have nowhere near the reliability of airliners, if only because the number of flights and hours of flight required to certify an airliner dwarf what any family of spacecraft experiences during its entire operational lifetime.
Besides, SpaceX has sill not begun regular commercial operation. Their ability to maintain a schedule and attain their cost and reliability objectives is totally unproven at this point. I'm not even sure it will be around in 10 years.
All this boasting about Mars or how they will make Boeing or Arianespace obsolete is a little premature.
another Musk company
subject should read: "Elon Musk Offers Boeing SpaceX Batteries For the Free Publicity"
It is always very funny how the Super-Porker Boeing has killed it's ability to properly engineer anything advanced, but have developed a serious Propaganda capability. YOU are just one of their pawns.
For the most part I don't give a shit about sports, but in aero-tech I support AIRBUS. So when I see BOEING taking a bath, I fucking love it. Sport for nerds.
Elon Musk is a great American entrepreneur who Gets Things Done. Without burning through dozens of billions and then releasing some half-baked MBA-monstrosity.
Mr Musks E-cars have to deliver at least as much energy and max power as Boeing ever needs in the 787 to start APUs and keep the cabin lighted when switching over from APU to ground power. I am not privy to Mr Musk's companie's internals, but I suspect he does not value politicial correct bullshit MBA's like every large corporation such as Boeing does. In other words, he is not a politico, but a Guy Who Get's Things Done Right.
Plus he is a salesman. A true American hero, I would say. I am German and I work for a super-corpo here. I know bullshit politics and how costly it is first-hand. My hands as an engineer are tied by corporate red-tape and coward managers. I read war stories of R&D managers being fired for the sloppy work that resulted from top management pressure to "ship quickly no matter what" ( an advanc ed Diesel engine which crapped out at 100000km because the management crappers would not allow for proper testing).
For anything to be attached to the ISS, they have very exacting standards. Much more difficult than FAA. In fact, the biggest fear in space IS fire. Now, NASA and RSA have made all sorts of exceptions for their own crafts. BUT, to the best of my knowledge, NO SAFETY EXCEPTIONS have been made for SpaceX. As such, I would suspect that bringing up a li-ion battery had to be proven to all that it was safe in space. After all, if a fire occurs on dragon, it is still a major threat while it is BERTHED at the ISS.
I have little doubt that the battery pack could work for the 787. And I suspect that it could be approved within 2-3 months if needed (round the clock testing with FAA tests).
Finally, for all of you blasting musk on this, please give me a break. Tesla does NOT compete against Boeing. And when it comes to space, Boeing has their CST-100 being paid by the gov. SpaceX is paying for the majority of their dragon rider. I suspect that Boeing and SpaceX will share the ISS routes once they are both going while SpaceX will likely get the majority of BA's routes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
if u RTFA, you will find that it was simply a wire being chaffed. They even point out in the article that it has nothing to do with the battery.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Human Space certification IS HARD. And that is more so considering that some within NASA are opposed to private space. As such, NO SAFETY EXCEPTIONS were made for SpaceX. OTOH, all of NASA's and RSA's vehicles would flunk if they had to pass the same thing.
And considering that li-ion batteries are well known for fires, then you can bet on it, that this was fully tested by NASA and possibly FAA. Keep in mind that FAA is the ones regulating private space and are checking over the various crafts.
As to the investigators, I think that what they said was that there was no issue with the manufacturing. Not that there was not an issue with the battery. Just that the batch that went through met the qualification tests. It is possible that there is still an issue with the battery. Yes, they are looking at the electronics, but if nothing is found there, then they will likely go back to the batteries and simulate what happened. Keep in mind that A123 was bankrupted because their test did not include the vehicle going over 180. When fiskar did, and a battery started smoldering, it took another 6 months before it was found that the battery was at fault. Why? Because nobody thought to turn it over. It is possible that conditions on the plane, such as increased radiation is causing an early breakdown in the current batteries.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It hasn't achieved that rate .... and probably won't for a long time. Why do you think NASA hasn't even hinted as using the Dragon for man flights.
With an 85% rate of failure, neither the Dragon or the Falcon rocket are anywhere near being man-flight-rated.