Boeing’s Starliner is seen Wednesday on top of an Atlas V rocket at the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida.
Trevor Mulman
Today is the day when Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft must take to the skies. Unless.
Nearly 29 months have passed since the company’s first attempt to demonstrate that Starliner can safely launch into orbit, fly to the International Space Station and dock, and then return to Earth in the New Mexico desert under three parachutes. During this test flight in December 2019, of course, there were countless software problems and Starliner ended up with no fuel to meet the space station.
As part of its fixed-price contract with NASA – the space agency paid about $ 5.1 billion to Boeing to develop a system to transport the crew to the space station – the company agreed to repeat the demonstration flight. Boeing thought it was ready for that re-flight last August, but hours before the launch, more than a dozen valves in Starliner’s propulsion system crashed. The experiment was canceled, so Boeing never managed to test its reworked software code.
Since August, Boeing and NASA have been working to understand the problem with the valves, which turned out to be due to environmental humidity, which causes corrosion inside the valves. The engineers then made adjustments. Due to this additional delay, Boeing suffered a loss of $ 600 million to fly on this second demonstration mission, known as the Orbital Flight Test-2.
Today’s launch is scheduled to take place at 18:54 ET (22:54 UTC) on top of the Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Forces station. The coverage of the launch will begin at 18:00 ET on NASA television. Overall, the weather looks good, with a 70 percent chance of “starting” during the instant start window.
During launch, the Atlas V rocket with two solid-fuel rocket boosters will deliver the Starliner to an altitude of 181 km, after which the spacecraft will ascend into orbital trajectory. This will be the 93rd overall launch of the rocket, which was built by the United Launch Alliance and has an excellent reliability record.
Advertising
The stakes are high for both Boeing and NASA. Boeing is likely to have lost money on Starliner development over the past decade. Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver recently said she believes the company is unlikely to launch the program if it has a chance to do it all over again. The sooner Boeing manages to bring Starliner into operational status, the better it will be financially, as it can serve both NASA and attract additional customers in the private market.
Meanwhile, the space agency would very much like a second means of reaching the space station. She is confident in the ability of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon – for which NASA paid $ 3.1 billion and has been flying safely with astronauts since mid-2020 – but due to uncertainty in Russia, the space agency can no longer count on access to the spacecraft. Union “.
-
Enlarged photo of the Starliner service module from its previous startup attempt in August 2021. Note the open inputs / outputs in the drive system.
Trevor Mulman
-
A photo taken Wednesday of the same service module structure showing work that was probably done to close the access of moisture to the Starliner drive system.
Trevor Mulman
One of NASA’s astronauts, who will fly on an early Starliner mission, Butch Wilmore, told a news conference Wednesday that Boeing and the space agency were confident before attempting to launch on Thursday. “This spaceship is ready,” he said. “The teams are ready. The Boeing is ready. The ULA is ready. The mission’s operational people who will control the spacecraft in space are ready. And we’re excited.”
If all goes well with the launch, the unmanned Starliner spacecraft will board the space station on Friday at 19:10 ET (23:10 UTC). This will allow Starliner and its heavily redesigned software to pass a key test for NASA. After a few days attached to the station, Starliner should fly back to Earth next week. Success with the overall mission is likely to set the test for a Starliner crew launch in the first half of 2023.
Add Comment