Boeing’s leak-prone Starliner capsule will remain docked with the International Space Station for another four days, NASA announced Tuesday, returning to Earth on June 26 with a predawn landing in White Sands, New Mexico, concluding an extended 20 -day landing. one-day test flight – the first with astronauts on board.
The extra docked time gives Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams more time to assist aboard the station while flight controllers continue to investigate telemetry and finalize reentry plans involving five known helium leaks in the capsule’s propulsion system and unexpected behavior in multiple maneuvering jets.
One jet won’t be used for the rest of the flight, but the other suspect thrusters were successfully “hot fired” during a test Saturday, giving managers confidence that they will work as necessary to drop the Starliner from orbit to restart to enter and land. .
As for the helium leaks, engineers say the spacecraft has more than ten times the helium needed for the remainder of the flight. During Saturday’s hot-fire test, leak rates were lower than what telemetry indicated earlier in the mission, but engineers are still assessing data to better understand the system’s behavior.
“We learned that our helium system is not performing as designed. While it is manageable, it is still not performing as we designed,” said Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Starliner program manager. “So we have to find out.”
As for the thrusters: “There are some things about our flight profile and/or our parameters… where our thrusters are not performing (as expected). So we need to figure that out.” But he said Boeing plans to “completely eliminate” both problems, which he described as “nuisances,” before the Starliner flies again.
“The good thing about the situation is that we can stay on the ISS a little longer and collect as much data as possible so that we can understand this as best as possible.”
In the meantime, Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, said the Starliner can return Wilmore and Williams safely to Earth, as well as if a problem arises that requires an immediate departure.
But as it stands now, Wilmore and Williams will detach from the space station’s forward port on June 25 at 10:10 PM EDT and fire the ship’s aft thrusters to fall from orbit early the next day, taking a parachute deployment – and airbag-assisted landing at White Sands at 4:51 a.m. EDT.
The day before Wilmore and Williams depart, ISS astronauts Tracy Dyson and Mike Barratt plan to venture outside the station for a spacewalk, or EVA, to retrieve a faulty radio transmitter and collect swabs from the air vents and the station airlock to find out if microorganisms are present. have managed to get out and survive in the harsh environment of space.
During an initial attempt on June 13, during what would have been the first of three planned spacewalks, Dyson and Matthew Dominick, her original partner, never emerged from the airlock. Dominick reported a “discomfort problem” in the spacesuit and the EVA was called off.
Rather than take the time to investigate and resolve the problem with Dominick’s suit, and given the amount of airlock oxygen available, NASA managers decided to retry the original spacewalk with Dyson and Barratt and combine the tasks planned for the second and third outings in a single excursion on July 2.
But the spacewalk schedule is dependent on undocking the Starliner, which is the top short-term priority.
The Starliner was already four years behind schedule launched on June 5a month later than planned due to problems with the Atlas 5 rocket, problems with a countdown computer, and an initial helium leak in the system used to pressurize the capsule’s thrusters.
NASA and Boeing managers decided the leak was too small to pose a safety risk and the ship was cleared for launch. But once in orbit and on the way to the space station Four more helium leaks occurred and the Starliner’s flight computer took seven maneuver aircraft offline when telemetry did not meet pre-launch expectations.
Stich said Saturday’s hot-fire test showed that the jets are needed for post-docket maneuvers and that the critical de-orbit “burn” will operate if necessary to deorbit the ship for re-entry . Likewise, he said engineers were confident the helium leaks can be fixed even if one or more leaks worsen after disconnection.
But the extra days tied to the space station will give engineers more time to review data and monitor telemetry from the Starliner’s service module, where the thrusters and helium pressure lines are located. Engineers won’t be able to study the actual hardware because the service module will be discarded before being reinserted and will burn up in the atmosphere.
“We’re taking extra time since this is a crewed vehicle, we want to make sure we haven’t left any stone unturned,” Stich said. “We also want to look at the systems and the possible interaction between the systems and make sure we haven’t missed anything before we return.”
“I like the vehicle to stay a little longer,” he added. “I like that we get to see how the vehicle performs thermally, how the space station charges the batteries. We get to see those kinds of cycles, which we absolutely need for the next missions. … So I think there’s a silver lining edge if you stay on the space station a little longer.”
Before launch, NASA executives had hoped the Starliner test flight would pave the way for the spacecraft’s certification for operational space station crew rotation missions beginning early next year. But given the issues previously encountered during the flight, certification may be delayed depending on what is needed to address the issues identified so far.
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