I was watching/listening on the NASATV feed when it was undocking and thought I heard mention of another failed thruster. That doesn't concern me too much if the failure mode is already understood. Nav system failure during descent, even if it was temporary....good grief!

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Bernard Cawley
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SAM 0061
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Spot-on, Bernard. More of the same. Thrusters overheating on the service module.

The REAL news will be what happens next. Does Boeing bow out? Does NASA do anything at all? We shall see!

Whither Starliner?
September 9, 2024

https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4854/1

That return was not without problems. Stich said that two RCS thrusters got hotter than expected during the deorbit burn, but continued to function. Stich said that software that would have turned off malfunctioning thrusters had been disabled for Starliner?s return, but didn?t immediately know if that software would have otherwise turned off the thrusters.

A separate thruster on the crew capsule, one of 12, also malfunctioned, but Stich noted it was of a different design than those on the service module, using a monopropellant and catalyst bed rather than the bipropellant design of the RCS thrusters on the service module. However, a redundant thruster meant no loss of performance for the capsule. A navigation computer struggled to get a lock of GPS signals after emerging from the blackout caused by the plasma created during reentry.

None of those problems would have prevented a safe return for Williams and Wilmore...

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I saw this beautiful girl on the bus, but she looked sad. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "Well, my analyst said I'm a nymphomaniac, but I only like Jewish cowboys... by the way, my name is Dianne." I said, "Hello, Dianne. My name is Bucky Goldstein." - Steven Wright

I wonder how hot Gemini VIII's OAMS thruster got.

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I love sanding.

The positive news is that they figured out that the thrusters were getting too hot months ago - this is just further confirmation.
So they need to figure out how to prevent the overheating. May not be simple, but it should be a straightforward engineering problem.
Saw somewhere else that the thruster duty cycle that they designed to was wrong (interesting to know how that happened - bad specs from NASA or bad analysis from Boeing), but the overheating probably traces back to that.