2024-05-06 07:14:40
After years of glitches and delays, the Boeing Starliner spacecraft is set to take off for the first time on Monday with astronauts on board, bound for the International Space Station.
Boeing is playing big with this final test mission, which would allow it to demonstrate that its ship is safe before starting regular missions to the Space Station (ISS), already four years behind SpaceX.
American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are due to depart on Monday at 10:34pm from Cape Canaveral in Florida (Tuesday 02:34 GMT) aboard the Starliner capsule, which will be propelled into orbit by an Atlas V rocket from ULA group.
The weather forecast looks very favorable.
These space veterans, both from the US Navy, have already visited the ISS twice, aboard a space shuttle and then on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
But this time, “everything is new, everything is unique, the ship itself, the way they fly,” emphasized Butch Wilmore. “I don’t think any of us wanted to dream about taking part in the first flight of a brand new ship,” he said happily.
For NASA, which ordered this vehicle ten years ago, the stakes are also high: a second vehicle in addition to the SpaceX vehicle to transport American astronauts is “very important”, stated Dana Weigel, who is in charge on the ISS board, present.
This capacity will make it possible to respond better to “various emergency situations”, for example in the event of a problem on one of the vessels, she explained.
Manual piloting
Once in space, the astronauts will temporarily pilot the spacecraft by hand, to validate the operation of this method.
Starliner is due to dock there with the ISS on Wednesday around 05:00 GMT and stay there for a little over a week. New tests will be carried out, then the two astronauts will return with him to Earth.
The success of this mission would end the ship’s development program on a good note, a saga that had an unpleasant surprise.
In 2019, during the first uncrewed test, the capsule could not be properly placed and returned without reaching the ISS.
Then in 2021, with the rocket on the launch pad to test the flight again, another problem was postponed due to a problem with blocked valves on the capsule.
The empty ship finally managed to reach the ISS in May 2022.
From now on, the first crewed flight must certify the capsule, so that it can begin its role as a “taxi” to the ISS.
Boeing had hoped to be able to make this first manned flight as early as 2022, but problems encountered of late caused further delays, particularly with the parachutes braking the capsule during its re-entry into atmosphere. The world.
“There were some surprises that we had to overcome,” Boeing executive Mark Nappi said at a news conference. But “it made our teams very strong, and proud of how they overcame every problem.”
“It usually takes ten years to develop a human space vehicle,” he said.
“shame”
The astronauts, like Boeing and NASA, are expecting new unexpected events to punctuate this mission, which aims to find out if there is a grain of sand left.
“In the history of American spaceflight, this will be only the sixth time that NASA astronauts will fly in a new spacecraft,” said Jim Free, NASA associate administrator.
SpaceX’s Dragon capsule was already on this list in 2020, following the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs.
Once Starliner is operational, NASA would like to alternate between SpaceX and Boeing flights to transport its astronauts to the ISS.
In 2014, the space agency signed a contract worth 4.2 billion with Boeing and 2.6 billion with SpaceX to develop these vessels.
“Everyone thought Boeing was going to get there first,” Erik Seedhouse, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University, told AFP. “That SpaceX was successful before Starliner was an embarrassment to Boeing.”
With the ISS due to retire in 2030, both Starliner and Dragon could then be used to send people to private space stations in the future, which some companies are already planning to build.
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