NASA will talk about the delayed return of Boeing’s Starliner capsule to Earth at a press conference today (June 18), and you can hear it live.
NASA and Boeing representatives will discuss the procedure Starlinermission in International Space Station (ISS), which landed on June 6 after experiencing several helium leaks and problems with five on-board Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters. The press conference begins at 12 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) and you can listen to it live here on Space.com via NASA TV.
The first Starliner docking attempt was called off due to problems with the RCS thrusters, but the rendezvous was successfully completed on a second attempt a few hours later on 6 June. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have since conducted thrust tests to evaluate the spacecraft’s problems and performance.
Starliner was expected to spend about a week on the ISS, but NASA and Boeing have extended the capsule’s stay in orbit until at least June 22. During the extended mission, “the crew will conduct additional hatch operations to better understand the controls, repeat some” safe haven testing and assess forward window piloting,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said in a recent agency statement.
Related: Thruster malfunctions and helium leaks can’t stop Boeing Starliner astronauts’ test flight — but why do they happen?
The Dragon Starliner and SpaceX capsules are the two private vehicles NASA has chosen to transport the agency’s astronauts to and from the ISS. (The venerable Russian Soyuz spacecraft also provides this service on manned missions.) The Starliner is currently on a test mission known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), which aims to certify the capsule before the first operational mission, called Starliner-1, expected in 2025.
CFT can stay for several months if needed. The crew and NASA have repeatedly stated that safety will always override any previously stated timeline for launch, docking, landing or other missions.
Both Starliner and Dragon were funded by NASA in 2014 for missions expected no earlier than 2017, although technical and financial issues have delayed that timeline by years. SpaceX, based on its own robotic cargo spacecraft ISS, sent its first crewed Dragon mission into space in 2020 after a single unmanned test flight to an orbiting laboratory.
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The Starliner, a new spaceship design, is required much more work. Its December 2019 uncrewed test mission did not reach the ISS as planned after computer glitches stuck the Starliner in the wrong orbit. The next unmanned mission did not take off until 2022, after the glitches on the first flight had been resolved and the coronavirus pandemic had broken out. While the second mission went ahead as planned, new problems with flammable tape and parachute loading delayed the CFT until 2024.
The CFT launch was set for May 6, but that day’s attempt was cleared just two hours before launch due to a problem with a valve on United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
NASA and Boeing then discovered a small helium leak on the Starliner that affected one of its thrusters, requiring a lengthy evaluation. Team members then also identified a design problem that could affect reentry, requiring certification of a new method of reentry into Earth, which the astronauts tested on earth before going home. The mission finally took off on June 5, on the third launch attempt.