NASA and Boeing are planning tests of Starliner systems and hope that the space vehicle will flight again with the crew by the end of the year. Credit: NASA
The Boeing Starliner Space was under the microscope after Spacex intervened to return the Astronauts of NASA Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – who made the vehicle inaugural flight test (CFT) – from the International Space Station (ISS) after their stay was extended for about a week more than nine months.
NASA Thursday, however, said that Starliner – who suffered Elio losses and degraded the engines in orbit – could fly again as soon as this year. The temporal sequence will depend on the completion of the tests at the white sand test in New Mexico, targeted for spring or summer.
“Once we have passed these planned test campaigns, we will have a better idea than when we can fly the next Boeing flight,” said Steve Stich, director of the NASA commercial crew program, in an update. “We will continue to work through certification towards the end of this year and then we will understand where Starliner adapts better to the program for the International Space Station and its crew and load missions.”
The space agency has described the next flight as a “post-certificated mission capable of the crew”, but stated that it reserves the opportunity to make it fly as a load mission “depending on the needs of the agency”.
Last week officials said they were not sure if the mission would have been equipped or invoked. But they insisted that Boeing remains on board with the program despite the items that the company is taking into consideration the sale of its space activity.
“NASA is witnessing Boeing’s commitment to adding the Starliner system at the transport of the Nation’s crew,” Ken Bowersox, associated administrator of NASA for space operations, said Thursday Ken Bowex.
NASA and Boeing had planned that the CFT was the final test flight of Starliner before it was certified to rotate the crews of the astronauts to the ISS. The development of the vehicle is financed from $ 4.2 billion from the commercial crew, of which also the Spacex Dragon crew – Wilmore and Williams’ laughs at home – is part. So far Dragon has flown all 10 commercial crew missions and should launch eleventh as soon as July. Boeing, meanwhile, has lost more than $ 2 billion on Starliner without completing an operational mission.
Thursday, however, NASA said that it is “making progress” towards the vehicle certification for another crew flight. In the months following the unjustified return of Starliner, “over 70 percent of flight observations and the anomalies in flight” were closed in the “control advice at the program level”, said the space agency.
The staff is working to solve the “tested” anomalies “storing: a series of losses of helium and rcs (faulty reaction control system) losses, which are designed to bring precise orbital adjustments. Five of these engines were unable to shoot in full force during the CFT.
In the end, the teams tracked down the latter problem in a design defect in the four Stabriner slats: structures that each house seven RC and five powerful orbital -orvine orbital (Omac) maneuver (Omac). The engineers believe that the rods have overheated, causing an expansion of a seal and block the propellant flow.
“We thought, of course, that we had done enough analysis to demonstrate that the engines would be within the temperatures they were qualified for,” said Stich in August. “Clearly, there have been some missing in qualifying.”
In the coming months, NASA will brush some RCS engines on white sand soil to “validate detailed thermal models and inform potential potential updates of the thermal protection system, as well as operational solutions for future flights”. The agency is taking into consideration the installation of new thermal barriers in the puppies and the change in the cadence of the engines of the engines to avoid overheating. He also said he is testing new seals for Starliner’s helium Elio systems to prevent future losses.
The investigation on the engine problems, however, “it is expected that it will remain open in 2025, pending the outcome of various earth test campaigns and potential system updates”.
Last week Stich said that NASA has a “more time” before it should decide if Starliner will fly the mission of the crew-12. The missions of the commercial crew generally last six months and the agency on Thursday said that the crew-11 would not be launched before July, which would put the launch of the crew-12 around January.
The astronaut of NASA Mike Finke, who had previously been assigned to Starliner’s first operational mission, was announced as a crew pilot-11 and will no longer fly to Boeing space vehicle, said the agency Fly.
A version of this story was published for the first time Fly.
