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Author of the article:
Reuters
Joey Roulette and Steve Gorman
Publication date:
May 20, 2022 • 32 minutes ago • 3 minutes of reading • Join the conversation
Content of the article
CAPE CANAVER – Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule boarded the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, completing a major target in a high-stakes test flight into orbit without astronauts on board.
The droplet-shaped CST-100 Starliner met with the orbital research post, which is currently home to a seven-member crew, nearly 26 hours after the capsule was launched from the U.S. Space Force’s Cape Canaveral base in Florida.
The Starliner took off on Thursday with an Atlas V rocket provided by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin United Launch Alliance (ULA) and reached its planned pre-orbit 31 minutes later despite damage to two onboard propulsion devices.
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Boeing said the two defective pushers posed no risk to the rest of the space flight, which comes after more than two years of delays and costly engineering failures in a program designed to give NASA another vehicle to send its astronauts to and from orbit.
The ISS dock took place at 20:28 EDT (00:28 GMT Saturday) as the two vehicles flew 271 miles (436 km) over the South Indian Ocean, according to commentators on NASA’s live webcast.
PATIENT WAY BACK TO ORBIT
Much depends on the outcome, after the ill-fated first test flight at the end of 2019 almost ended with the loss of the vehicle after a software problem that effectively thwarted the spacecraft’s ability to reach the space station.
Subsequent problems with the Starliner propulsion system supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne prompted Boeing to delete a second attempt to launch the capsule last summer.
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Starliner remained in custody for another nine months while the two companies debated what caused the fuel valves to close and which company was responsible for repairing them, Reuters reported last week.
Boeing said it had finally resolved the issue with a temporary solution and planned a redesign after the flight this week.
As well as looking for the cause of two failed thrusters shortly after Thursday’s launch, Boeing said it was observing some unexpected behavior detected with Starliner’s thermal control system, but capsule temperatures remained stable.
“It’s all part of the process of training Starliner to orbit,” said Boeing mission commentator Steve Ciseloff during a NASA webcast.
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The capsule is scheduled to take off from the space station on Wednesday for a return flight to Earth, ending with a parachute landing softened by an air cushion in the New Mexico desert.
Success is seen as key to Boeing as the Chicago-based company struggles to emerge from successive crises in its jet business and space defense business. The Starliner program alone cost nearly $ 600 million in engineering failures since the 2019 crash.
If all goes well with the current mission, Starliner can fly its first team of astronauts to the space station in the fall.
So far, the only passenger was a research mannequin, bizarrely named Rosie the Rocketwoman and wearing a blue flight suit perched on the commander’s seat, collecting data on crew cabin conditions during the voyage, plus an 800-pound (227 kg) cargo to deliver to the space station.
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The orbital platform is currently occupied by a crew of three NASA astronauts, an astronaut from the European Space Agency in Italy and three Russian astronauts.
After resuming crew flights into orbit from the United States in 2020, nine years after the end of the space shuttle program, the U.S. space agency had to rely solely on Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rockets and Crew Dragon capsules to NASA astronauts are flying.
Previously, the only other way to reach the orbital laboratory was by boarding the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. (Report by Joey Roulette in Cape Canaveral, Florida; Writing and additional reports by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; edited by Grant McCool and Sandra Mahler)
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