2024-07-10 17:43:35
NASA and Boeing have detailed the status of tests, which are still ongoing, to determine when the first Starliner spacecraft will begin its descent to Earth. In any case, the people responsible for this space program emphasized this Wednesday in a press conference that the return will not happen before the end of July. Therefore, although the mission involved only eight days, due to some errors and leaks in the propulsion system, the ship will be kept for about two months at the International Space Station (ISS), where it arrived 6 June with two astronauts on board, Captain Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams.
The US space agency, together with the aeronautical company that manufactures and operates the ship, decided to continue taking more time to analyze the data collected in recent weeks and the tests carried out on the ground , at the White Sands (New) test base. Mexico, USA), the same one that contains the capsule Calypso of this Starliner landing on his return. “We want to continue the tests, until we are confident that we fully understand what happened to the drives. “This is not unusual in space missions,” said Steve Stich, director of NASA’s commercial human flight program.
On June 28, in their last update before today, NASA and Boeing They announced that they would do simulations at the base with trucks prepared for future missions, as well as continuing to analyze data from the ship still docked to the ISS.
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The purpose of these intensive tests is to find out the causes, so far unknown, of the failures of several thrusters and leaks of helium – the gas used to pressurize the propulsion system of the ship’s service module -, which have been detected during the approach of the ship to the ISS. This delayed the coupling between the two spacecraft by several hours. With the Starliner already deployed to the International Space Station, two new helium leaks have fueled concerns about the number of errors.
After the first time was postponed twice the return date – the landing was originally scheduled for June 14 -, then NASA announced a week after that date which postponed the return indefinitely, until he could gather enough data on the problems found on the Boeing ship. The only way to examine the failed thrusters and ducts is for the spacecraft to remain docked to the ISS, as the service module is disposable. This part of the ship, dedicated to propulsion and power generation, separates from the cavity and disintegrates during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
During his recent appearance, Steve Stich repeatedly insisted that there are no safety issues for the return flight. In fact, in the event of an emergency on the ISS, Wilmore and Williams are allowed to take the Starliner ship and return at any time. Stich noted that “the ISS schedule is pretty clear until mid-August” and, with plenty of food and supplies on the station, the two astronauts are in no rush to return to Earth.
In a press conference also held this Wednesday from the space station, the two astronauts confirmed that they were “absolutely confident that everything is in place to return home safely” and explained that the main thrusters were intended to power the ship to lower it towards Earth, which is not among those who have reported failures and leaks. In any case, Suni Williams recalled that when the Starliner spacecraft detaches from the ISS to begin its return, checks will be repeated before proceeding.
Integrated into the world of the ISS
Captain Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams be integrated into the daily life and work of Expedition 71 from the International Space Station, where they are for 34 days. The initial plan was for them to stay on board for a week, but both had previous experience on the ISS—Williams became the commander of Expedition 33—and there was no problem for them to adapt and cooperate with the seven another crew. members on assignments. In addition, they continue their main work on the station, which is to analyze the data necessary for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to be certified for long periods on the ISS.
This space license is necessary so that the Starliner ships can fulfill the mission for which they were created: to offer NASA a regular transport line to space, to the current ISS and to future stations in low Earth orbit. In this way, Boeing plans to compete with SpaceX and its Crew Dragon ship. However, Elon Musk’s space company has some advantages in this competition, because its ship is completely reusable – and for each Starliner flight the Atlas V rocket and service module are set aside, and only the capsule is reused – and in addition, the Crew Dragon regularly issues already to the space station since it received its authorization in 2020, after the success of its first manned flight.
At the moment, the Starliner is not licensed to stay attached to the ISS for 45 days, and that limit is 10 days away from being met. However, NASA officials who oversee this commercial flight program emphasized that this period is related to the duration of the batteries, which have been recharged at the station and are in perfect condition. According to Steve Stich“Based on the continued performance of the Starliner while docked, we are working with the station to extend the certification of various components over a 45-day mission period, if necessary.”
The delay in the return of Starliner’s first manned mission is not the only unexpected event in this mission or in this Boeing space program. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams finally lifted off on June 5, on the third launch attempt, after two cancellations and several postponements that delayed the mission by a month. And in 2019, in its first unmanned test flight, the capsule Calypso It already had problems: it failed to dock with the ISS and had to return to Earth early. That forced a new test flight with another Starliner capsule, in 2022, and between that second mission and the current one, new problems keep piling up several more years of delay. That was the initial plan in 2018 Starliner would have brought its first crew members to the ISS.
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