A new image and incredible time-lapse show the aurora borealis filling the view as Boeing Starliner astronauts performed a crucial in-flight test in space on Saturday (June 15).
Starliner is currently on International Space Station (ISS) and the crew tested the capsule’s thrusters as problems delayed its docking procedures; the first problems occurred on June 6, when the astronauts were on board. While this was happening, NASA the cosmonauts floated into the vicinity SpaceX The Dragon capsule, also attached to the ISS, captured a green aurora glimmering behind the Starliner’s rear end.
“The Starliner was doing some testing today so we decided to check it out from the web Dragon windows,” NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “The timing was perfect for the aurora to line up nicely with the Starliner’s service module jets.” Dominick also shared a time period of testingin which you can see flashlights from the crew lighting up the Starliner.
Aurora they occur when the sun explodes and sends out charged particles that interact magnetic field lines around Earth. The particles glow and emit bright colors. Sun it’s especially active right now because it’s peaking in its normal 11-year cycle of activity, which is why these shows have been seen more often on Earth and in space.
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Starliner is co-piloted by veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, both former US Navy test pilots. They have repeatedly emphasized that the mission is developmental and is designed to iron out major issues before Starliner is fully certified to perform spin missions to the ISS, starting no earlier than 2025 with Starliner-1.
Due to nozzle tests and going into space–As planned, the team’s expected week-long Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission was doubled to take off on June 22 at the earliest. NASA will hold a media briefing tomorrow (June 18) to discuss the progress of the mission.
During the extended mission, “the crew will perform additional hatch operations to better understand its controls, repeat some ‘safe harbor’ tests and evaluate forward window piloting,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager. recent agency statement.
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Starliner and Dragon are two commercial spacecraft that NASA funded in 2014 for astronaut missions to the ISS. At the time, both spacecraft were expected to fly in 2017 at the earliest. However, technical and financial issues have delayed that goal. SpaceX sent its first astronauts aloft in 2020 after a successful unmanned test mission, while the Starliner waited longer.
The first unmanned ISS test in 2019 failed to reach its destination due to computer glitches. Dozens of such problems and the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 delayed the second unmanned test to 2022. That test went ahead as planned, but new problems emerged. For example, there were complications with parachute loading and flammable tape that delayed the CFT launch to 2023.
That’s when CFT was launched delayed by another monthfrom May 6 to June 5. This was caused by various problems with United Launch Alliance The Atlas V rocket and also a small helium leak in one of the Starliner’s thrusters. Among other things, the leak affected one way of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and required careful re-evaluation before finally successfully launching.