BOEING and NASA are racing to fix the Starliner’s thrusters as the return date for its two astronauts is postponed once again.
The $1.5 billion (£1.1 billion) spacecraft finally managed to lift off on June 5 after weeks of technical problems and delays, but is now at risk of returning much later than originally planned.
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The Boeing Starliner’s inaugural manned flight to the International Space Station (ISS) was only supposed to last a week, but 14 days later it still remains in orbit.
Boeing attributed the delay to troubleshooting propellant issues that interfered with the Starliner’s first attempt to dock with the ISS on June 6.
Five of Starliner’s 28 reaction control thrusters failed during the final phase of the ISS encounter, although four of them returned to service.
NASA and Boeing have taken advantage of the extra time to continue evaluating the problems and scheduled a maintenance spacewalk to ensure everything was working well.
But this has now been postponed to June 24, two days before the Starliner’s scheduled departure, which is still at risk of being delayed further.
This means astronauts Butch Wilmore, 61, and Suni Williams, 58, remain in limbo about when they will be able to return to their own planet.
NASA announced yesterday (June 18) that Starliner will complete its first human mission to the ISS no earlier than June 26 – seven days from now.
Landing that day is scheduled to take place at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 4:51 a.m. EDT (08:51 GMT).
The Starliner can undock with the ISS in an emergency, but otherwise, testing is ongoing to learn more about the vehicle’s systems.
During the live-streamed conference call, Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said: “We want to give our teams a little more time to look at the data, do some analysis and make sure we’re really ready to go back. home. “
An investigation into why five of the Starliner’s thrusters failed is ongoing.
As part of those efforts, however, Boeing and NASA ground team members performed a hot propulsion test over the weekend alongside the astronauts.
One thruster did not fire during the test due to abnormally low pressure first observed during docking and will remain offline during descent to Earth.
Despite this, everyone “feels very confident”, according to Stich.
Wilmore and Williams have been testing Starliner’s various systems in orbit, while ground teams continue to analyze data to get a better handle on thrusters and helium leak issues.
Teams initially detected a small helium leak in Starliner’s service module on May 15, and Stich emphasized that in-orbit testing gave the team confidence that the spacecraft is recovering.
He said; “Saturday was a great day to understand that the helium leaks have reduced and also to understand that the thrusters have recovered and that we can count on the thrusters for the remainder of the flight.”
However, if the June 24 spacewalk is postponed again, undocking Starliner will become a priority, says Dana Weigel, ISS program manager.
Speaking at NASA’s live-streamed conference, she also confirmed that spacewalking astronauts Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mike Barratt would wait until the Starliner departed to carry out the extravehicular activity.
Mark Nappi, vice president and manager of Boeing’s commercial crew program, said everything that happens is natural for a test flight.
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“We have always said that this is a test flight and that we are going to learn some things. So here we are,” he said during a NASA press conference.
“We’ve learned that our helium system isn’t working, even though it’s manageable. It’s still working as we designed it. So we need to figure that out.”
Nappi added that the current situation is the perfect opportunity to fully understand system performance “without schedule or time pressure.”
However, this is just the latest in a long series of setbacks that Starliner has experienced throughout its mission.
The aircraft’s launch to the ISS was originally scheduled for May 6, but the takeoff was canceled just two hours before takeoff after a strange humming noise was discovered coming from an oxygen valve.
The rearranged launch date of May 17 was pushed back to May 25 after crews detected the small helium leak in the Starliner’s service module.
After a period of silence following the incident, however, a NASA spokesperson soon confirmed that May 25 was also off the table, as officials deepened their analysis of the leak.
In a May 22 blog post, NASA announced that it was planning its next attempt in early June.
It was stated that June 1 would be the first day that Starliner crew flight testing could begin.
But the inaugural flight to the ISS on June 1 was abruptly halted, despite its two astronauts being ready to go and strapped into their seats.
It was the fourth time in weeks that the CST-200 Starliner’s trip into orbit has been delayed, with a “technical issue” cited as the most recent reason.
An automatic hold triggered by the computer that launches the rocket stopped Saturday’s countdown, reports say, with just three minutes and 50 seconds left until liftoff.
Here we go again…
Analysis by Jamie Harris, senior technology and science reporter at The Sun
Boeing didn’t really have much luck with its first manned space launch, but it looks like they’re finally going to have some good news.
The company attempted to send an unmanned Starliner to the ISS in 2019, but failed due to a series of problems – not to mention the disruption caused by the pandemic – and returned to Earth early.
A second unmanned test took place well into 2022, but a year later, experts discovered new problems that delayed a launch carrying astronauts.
Of course, safety comes first, so it’s a necessary step.
Experts working on the billion-dollar project tried to minimize the delay.
“I don’t find it frustrating at all,” Boeing program manager Mark Nappi recently told the press.
“We would have liked to have gone further at this point. There’s no doubt about that. But we’re here, prepared and ready to fly.”
Space is also an expensive business, so Boeing – and NASA – need this mission to succeed.
The development problems cost the company a whopping $1.5 billion in fees, as well as about $325 million for NASA in incentives for Boeing’s $4.2 billion fixed-price Starliner contract, according to records of titles and hiring data reviewed by Reuters.
NASA also needs this to work if it wants to keep up with China, which is making huge advances to the Moon and beyond.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
