Boeing’s Starliner Won’t Carry Out Next Test Flight Until 2022

NASA and Boeing have lastly revealed the following attainable date for an uncrewed take a look at launch of the corporate’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station: the primary half of 2022.

Starliner’s subsequent Orbital Flight Test-2 mission had been up the air since August, when a technical glitch involving 13 oxidizer valves within the spacecraft’s propulsion system didn’t open throughout countdown, forcing the area company and firm officers to cancel their plans. The valves hook up with the Starliner’s thrusters, which management abort and in-orbit maneuvering capabilities.

At that point, NASA mentioned the take a look at would occur after the launch of the Lucy asteroid space probe, which is ready to enter area on Saturday, Oct. 16. But Boeing wasn’t so positive it may very well be carried out this yr in any respect.

In the tip, it appears Boeing was proper. NASA and Boeing will likely be analyzing potential flight alternatives for subsequent yr alongside United Launch Alliance, the producer behind the Atlas V rocket that may launch the Starliner, and the Eastern Range, the Space Force entity in command of East Coast launches.

“Potential launch windows for OFT-2 continue to be assessed by NASA, Boeing, United Launch Alliance, and the Eastern Range,” NASA officers wrote in a blog update. “The team currently is working toward opportunities in the first half of 2022 pending hardware readiness, the rocket manifest, and space station availability.”

NASA mentioned that company and Boeing officers had been persevering with to make progress on investigating the oxidizer valve problem. Boeing has discovered that the most possible trigger seems to be associated to oxidizer and moisture interactions.

“Boeing has demonstrated success in valve functionality using localized heating and electrical charging techniques,” NASA defined. “Troubleshooting on the pad, at the launch complex, and inside the Starliner production factory at Kennedy Space Center has resulted in movement of all but one of the original stuck valves. That valve has not been moved intentionally to preserve forensics for direct root cause analysis.”

Over the following few weeks, Boeing will perform spacecraft and part testing to additional analyze attainable elements that contributed to the valve failure and decide remediation. In addition, it would take away three valves from the spacecraft for additional inspection.

The firm has recognized varied paths ahead, every relying on the result of its checks, to stop the difficulty from occurring once more. These options embrace minor refurbishment of the present service module to utilizing one other module already in manufacturing, based on NASA’s replace.

The Starliner, a part of a NASA program that seeks to move astronauts to the ISS, has solely accomplished one different uncrewed take a look at flight in what looks as if ages in the past. In 2019, it managed to achieve area however didn’t get to the ISS because of a software program failure.

Currently, NASA solely has two obtainable choices to ship astronauts to the ISS, Russian spacecraft and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.