NASA: after several failures, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft ready for the ISS in March

2023-08-08 03:25:47

After encountering many problems, the Boeing spacecraft, Starliner, should be ready in March for a first manned flight to the International Space Station, said at a press conference Mark Nappi, program manager at Boeing. But no take-off date has yet been announced.

“Right now we expect to be ready with the ship in early March,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we have a take-off date in early March. This will have to be determined later depending on the possibilities of ULA, the industrial group that provides the rocket responsible for launching the spacecraft, and places on board the International Space Station (ISS), he said.

NASA astronauts have been transported to the ISS since 2020 thanks to SpaceX vessels, but the American space agency wants to have a second service provider.

Several accumulated failures

After a failed flight in 2019, the Boeing capsule had managed to reach the ISS in May 2022 – without a crew on board. It must now perform a final manned test to be certified, and begin its operational flights.

Boeing had hoped to be able to carry out this first manned flight as early as 2022, but successive postponements have accumulated. The latest, announced in June, was related to two separate issues. The first concerned the parachutes used to brake the capsule during its return to Earth, part of the link between the capsule and the parachute had turned out to be more fragile than expected. The design has been modified, and a test will be conducted in November. Its success is imperative for the progress of the program.

The second problem concerned the adhesive tape used to wrap electrical cables inside the capsule. It was eventually determined that this could be flammable in this application, and therefore posed a risk. A large amount has since been removed, and continues to be removed. For some areas where removing it was too difficult, other techniques were used, such as adding a protective layer, detailed Mark Nappi.

“The Starliner vehicle remains a high priority for the space station program,” NASA program manager Joel Montalbano said Monday. Starliner’s first manned flight is to take two NASA astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, to the ISS, where they will stay for about a week. The launch is to be from Cape Canaveral, Florida.