Boeing’s Starliner capsule landed in White Sands, New Mexico on May 25, 2022, to complete the OFT-2 mission.
NASA Television
Boeing landed its unmanned Starliner in the New Mexico desert on Wednesday, completing an important test flight as the company prepares to transport astronauts.
The Starliner landed at the U.S. Army’s White Sands rocket range after leaving the International Space Station earlier in the day – completing a six-day orbital flight test 2, or OFT-2 mission.
The mission completed one of its most important test objectives, reaching the ISS and successfully docking. OFT-2 marks an important milestone in Boeing’s development of Starliner, which has encountered several obstacles and delays over the past three years.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was seen before docking with the International Space Station on May 20, 2022 during the unmanned OFT-2 mission.
NASA
Boeing is developing its Starliner spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew program, earning nearly $ 5 billion in capsule construction contracts. The company is competing under SpaceX against Elon Musk, who has completed the development of his Crew Dragon spacecraft and is now on his fourth manned space flight to NASA.
The aerospace giant was once seen as equal to SpaceX in the NASA astronaut launch race. Still, the delays in Starliner’s development keep Boeing back, both in terms of graphics and finances. Due to the nature of the fixed price of its contract with NASA, Boeing has borne the cost of additional work on the capsule and has so far spent $ 595 million.
Boeing Starliner’s next mission is expected to be the Crew Flight Test, or CFT, flying the first astronauts aboard the capsule. However, the company is investigating whether to redesign Starliner’s Aerojet Rocketdyne actuator valves, which were damaged during the company’s first attempt to launch the OFT-2 mission in August 2021.
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