Boeing’s Starliner may launch to the area station in December
Boeing is now planning to launch the second uncrewed check flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft no sooner than December, the corporate introduced Friday (Aug. 28).
The mission, known as Orbital Flight Take a look at 2 (OFT-2), shall be Boeing’s second try at launching its new astronaut taxi to the Worldwide House Station, following a partial failure that prevented the Starliner spacecraft from reaching the station through the OFT-1 mission in December 2019.
As soon as the corporate has demonstrated that the brand new area car can safely ferry astronauts to and from the area station, it is going to be in a position to begin launching astronauts to the orbiting lab as early as June 2021, NASA officers stated in a press release.
Associated: Boeing’s 1st Starliner flight check in images
Starliner’s first crewed mission, known as Crew Flight Take a look at, will ship NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann and Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson to the area station. If that crewed check flight is profitable, Boeing may begin flying operational crewed missions as quickly as December 2021, NASA added within the assertion.
Boeing’s first operational crewed flight, known as Starliner 1, will convey NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps, Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada to the area station. All Starliner missions will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Power Station in Florida on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
Boeing and NASA initially deliberate to fly Starliner’s Crew Flight Take a look at mission in mid-2020, however the mission was delayed after Boeing determined to redo the Orbital Flight Take a look at. Throughout its first check flight in December 2019, a collection of technical issues left the Starliner spacecraft stranded within the incorrect orbit and unable to succeed in the area station. So, as an alternative of docking with the orbiting lab, Starliner returned to Earth after simply two days in area.
Following the problematic check flight, NASA and Boeing fashioned an impartial evaluation crew to research the reason for OFT-1’s partial failure. That investigation, which wrapped up in July, discovered that two main software program errors and a brief drop in communications through the check flight had been primarily answerable for the partial failure, and the investigators recognized 80 “corrective actions” for Boeing to deal with earlier than the subsequent Starliner mission. Boeing has thus far tackled virtually 75% of these duties, NASA stated within the assertion.
Whereas the Starliner spacecraft is designed to be reused, Boeing will use a model new Starliner for the OFT-2 mission. The brand new capsule will present “further on-orbit expertise for the operational groups previous to flying missions with astronauts,” NASA stated within the assertion. The OFT-1 Starliner capsule, nicknamed “Calypso,” will fly once more on the Starliner 1 mission.
Boeing has spent this summer season assembling the brand new Starliner capsule for OFT-2 and is presently including a couple of ending touches earlier than the spacecraft is able to fly. In the meantime, Boeing’s software program crew in Houston is wrapping up the modifications to Starliner’s flight codes that had been really helpful by the impartial evaluation crew. The software program crew is presently making ready to conduct a completely built-in, end-to-end rehearsal check with Starliner and the Atlas V rocket — a check that Boeing was criticized for skipping earlier than the problematic OFT-1 mission.
Whereas Boeing continues to be working to exhibit that its new astronaut taxi can safely transport crews to and from the area station, SpaceX is gearing up for its first operational Crew Dragon mission to the station, Crew-1, following the corporate’s profitable Demo-2 mission, which despatched NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the area station in Could.
After the area shuttle program resulted in 2011, NASA contracted each SpaceX and Boeing to launch astronauts from U.S. soil, thereby decreasing NASA’s dependence on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts to the area station.
E-mail Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@area.com or observe her on Twitter @hannekescience. Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Fb.
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