NASA and Boeing postpone (again) the first manned launch of Starliner
The first manned test flight of Boeing's Starliner capsule is facing yet another delay. NASA officials said the launch is now not expected before July 21
Still delays for Boeing's Starliner mission.
NASA and Boeing have postponed the first manned launch of the US company's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft until at least the end of July because certification paperwork took longer than expected to complete.
During a March 29 press conference, NASA and Boeing officials said they had rescheduled the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission to no earlier than July 21. The announcement came six days after NASA said the CFT would not take place by the end of April as previously scheduled.
This mission is a key part of the overall test campaign for the Starliner spacecraft, which NASA plans to use to regularly ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). If all goes to plan, Boeing's Starliner will join SpaceX's Dragon capsule and Russia's Soyuz as the only man-certified spacecraft capable of the task. Starliner's first orbital test, an uncrewed mission, successfully docked with the ISS last May . By the time Starliner completes its next flight, Boeing will have met NASA's goal of having two commercial vehicles to transport astronauts,” Boeing said following the successful 2022 mission.
All details.
ADDITIONAL TESTS FOR BOEING'S STARLINER MISSION
The launch of the CST-100 Starliner mission was scheduled for April, but was delayed last week to May to accommodate the Axiom Space Ax-2 private spaceflight mission to the ISS.
Steve Stich, NASA's commercial crew program manager, said most of the work needed to prepare the CFT mission for launch to the International Space Station will be completed by April. One exception, he said, is certification work on the capsule's parachutes. "There are no problems or concerns with the parachute system," he said. “It's just about going through all that data, going through the data, and making sure you're ready to fly safely.”
THE POSITION OF BOEING
For the company's side, Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for Starliner at Boeing, said the delay in the parachute certification work was the fault of both the company and NASA. "It took longer to get the product to NASA, and NASA took a little longer to review it with us," he stressed. This revised program will also allow engineers more time to check on-vehicle avionics systems after they find a logic error in a "black box" unit called an integrated propulsion controller. “We want to make sure this condition doesn't exist anywhere else,” Nappi added.
BOEING'S STARLINER COMPETITION WITH SPACEX'S DRAGON
Both Boeing and SpaceX have received contracts from NASA to help develop their human spaceflight systems. Since 2010, NASA has spent more than $5 billion on the Starliner program, but the mission is years behind schedule.
While SpaceX has six operational crewed flights under its belt, Boeing has yet to perform a single crewed mission in a Starliner capsule.
If the mission is successful, NASA plans to probably certify Starliner for missions to the ISS. It's been a long road for capsule development, with the Starliner program facing a myriad of problems, including a failed test mission in 2019 and numerous delays, TechCrunch recalls.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MISSION TO NASA
Like SpaceX's Crew Dragon, Boeing's Starliner is tasked with restoring the ability to carry men into space to the United States.
NASA had to rely on Russian rockets and capsules to ferry their astronauts to and from the space station from the end of the space shuttle program in 2011 until 2020, when SpaceX began launching people to the orbiting outpost.
Once Boeing starts getting people into orbit, it will further strengthen NASA's independence from Russian systems to send Americans into space.
THE LAUNCH DATE
However, as Spacenews points out, the July 21 date is not final and will depend on working out a conflict with a US Space Force mission, also scheduled to launch around that time on another Atlas 5. work with the Space Force and the ULA to see our vehicle readiness and their vehicle readiness and if we get that slot,” said Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/nasa-e-boeing-rinviano-di-nuovo-il-primo-lancio-con-equipaggio-di-starliner/ on Fri, 31 Mar 2023 05:05:12 +0000.