Starliner Capsule Sunocks by Boeing from The International Space Station (ISS) in September without Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the crew of his flight test of the inaugural crew. Credit: NASA
After 268 days on board the International Space Station (ISS), the astronauts of NASA Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams made their long -awaited return to Earth on Tuesday evening. But while they have returned to a solid ground, the vehicle that flown them to the orbital laboratory faces an uncertain future.
Wilmore and Williams were commander and pilot, respectively, for the inaugural Crew Flight Test (CFT) of the Starliner Spacecraft of Boeing, which the company is developing based on a NASA contract with millions of dollars. The short mission has been extended after the engineers discovered helium losses and propeller problems with Starliner, who returned to the empty land in September, pushing the NASA to enlist Spacex for the return flight of the astronauts.
During a press conference on Tuesday, officials said they did not know if the next Starliner mission will be equipped or inappropriate. Boeing did not have a representative present to put questions about the space vehicle in the field.
“We are about to watch that vehicle, looking at the Elio system,” said Steve Stich, director of the NASA commercial crew.
The Starliner duo sprayed off the coast of Florida at the expected time of EDT on Tuesday at 17:57 and were welcomed by a dolphin pod. After completing the routine medical box, they arrived at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Tuesday and soon they will enjoy a “well -deserved free time,” said Stich, with their families.
Starliner, however, will not have that luxury. Stich said that NASA has a “more time” to determine whether Starliner will make the twelfth rotation mission of the astronauts of the commercial crew of the Space Agency to the ISS fly. To date, the Spacex dragon was the only crew capsule for those flights, including crew 9 and the missions of the crew-10 who facilitated the return of Wilmore and Williams.
Boeing hoped that the CFT was the final flight of the space vehicle before being certified for the commercial crew missions. According to Stich, the company has already provided “many” certification data. But there are outstanding problems with the propulsion system, for example.
“What we would like to do is a flight and then enter a crew rotation flight,” said Stich. “The next flight would really test all the changes we are making to the vehicle, and therefore the next flight beyond, we must really bring Boeing to a crew rotation.”
Before the next flight occurs, NASA will have to conduct tests to ensure that future missions do not suffer the same problems. Stich said the staff has already identified the seals that could be replaced to prevent helium losses. In the meantime, Boeing has developed a thermal system that the engineers are using to test the rods of Starliner, which contain its engines.
“We will add some ribbon and thermal barriers in different places,” said Stich.
Ironically, the return of the duo Starliner on the SPACEX Dragon crew shows exactly because NASA has enrolled Boeing as a supplier of commercial crews. The space agency wants a pair of redundant vehicles that could fly to the ISS in a pinch. In this case, Dragon intervened when Starliner had problems. But in the future, Starliner could be the backup vehicle for a dragon contingency.
“This is a lesson learned for NASA, so that when we have Boeing and Spacex who fly on a regular basis, we must be able to do the opposite,” said Bill Specch, responsible for the integration of operations for the NASA ISS program.
To the question if Boeing gave his 100 % commitment for the Starliner program – which cost the company more than $ 2 billion – said that the company was “deeply interested” on the return of Wilmore and Williams and was in communication throughout the process. In October, not long after Boeing appointed CEO of Kelly Ortberg, The Wall Street Journal He reported that the company was evaluating the sale of all its space activity, including Starliner.
“I see a commitment from Boeing to continue the program,” said Stich. “They realize that they have an important vehicle and that we were very close to having an ability that we would like to deploy ourselves. I think we have some changes that we must make to the way we heat those engines, in the way we lay down those engines, and therefore we can test it on the next flight.”
Spacex’s Dragon, meanwhile, should make the mission of the crew-11 fly already in mid-July, the officials said Tuesday. Starliner had previously destined to make his debut operational mission in 2025.
