Boeing Starliner: Two astronauts await return home amid spacecraft problems

Subscribe to CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more.

CNN
—

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was set to celebrate its crowning achievement this month: carrying two NASA astronauts on a return trip to the International Space Station, proving the long-delayed and over-budget capsule is up to the task.

Starliner is halfway to that goal.

But the two veteran astronauts piloting the test flight are now in a tentative position — extending their stay aboard the space station for a second time while engineers on the ground try to learn more about the problems that plagued the first leg of their journey.

Spaceflight veterans Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the space station aboard the Starliner on June 6. NASA originally assumed their stay would last about a week.

But problems the vehicle experienced en route, including helium leaks and thrusters that suddenly stopped working, raised questions about how the back half of the mission would play out.

Williams and Wilmore will now return on June 26 at the earliest, NASA announced Tuesday, extending their mission by at least 20 days as engineers race to better understand the spacecraft’s problems while it is safely attached to the space station.

Officials said there’s no reason to believe Starliner won’t be able to bring astronauts back home, although “we really want to work through the rest of the data,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said Tuesday. Press conference.

Meanwhile, Boeing tried to frame the mission as a successful and educational opportunity, even as the Starliner team grappled with the “unplanned” side of the mission, according to Mark Nappi, Boeing vice president and program manager of the Starliner program, on Tuesday.

It is not uncommon for astronauts to unexpectedly extend their stay aboard the space station—for days, weeks, or even months. (NASA also said the Starliner could spend up to 45 days in the orbiting lab if needed, according to Stich.)

But the situation raises a moment of uncertainty and embarrassment, adding to a long list of similar missteps by Boeing’s Starliner program, which is already years behind schedule. It also adds to the chorus of bad news that has followed Boeing as a company for some time.

Boeing and NASA engineers said they decided to keep the Starliner — and Williams and Wilmore with it — aboard the station longer than expected, primarily to conduct additional analysis. Helium leaks and thruster problems occurred on parts of the vehicle not designed to survive the journey home from space, so mission teams are delaying the spacecraft’s return as part of a last-ditch effort to learn everything they can about what went wrong. .

Danger looms every time a spacecraft returns home from orbit. It is perhaps the most dangerous part of any space mission.

The journey will require the Starliner to hit Earth’s thick atmosphere and fly at speeds greater than 22 times the speed of sound. The process bakes the outer surface of the spacecraft at a temperature of roughly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Then a set of parachutes — which Boeing redesigned and tested only in January — must safely decelerate the capsule before it reaches terra firma. (The Starliner will be the first U.S.-built capsule to parachute to the ground instead of splashing into the ocean. Boeing hopes this approach will make the Starliner’s post-flight recovery and refurbishment easier.)

Starliner’s journey to this historic crewed test mission began in 2014, when NASA tapped Boeing and SpaceX to develop a spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the International Space Station.

At the time, Boeing was seen as a stalwart aerospace giant likely to get the job done first, while SpaceX was an unpredictable newcomer.

Over the past decade, however, the tides have shifted.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft safely completed its first crewed mission — which appeared to go off without a hitch — in 2020. And since then, the vehicle has flown regularly with astronauts and paying customers.

The two astronauts who piloted Crew Dragon’s inaugural flight — Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley — also stayed aboard the space station longer than expected, more than 60 days, rather than the short break expected on such test flights.

But Hurley and Behnken’s stay was extended so that the astronauts could help with day-to-day operations aboard the space station, which was understaffed at the time. The expansion did not directly address specific software or hardware issues with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

Spacecraft problems, on the other hand, marred Boeing’s Starliner program at virtually every turn. The vehicle faced years of delays, setbacks and other expenses that cost the company more than $1 billion, according to public financial records.

The first Starliner test mission, carried out without a crew in late 2019, was riddled with errors. The vehicle failed in orbit, a symptom of software problems that included a coding error that set the internal clock at 11 o’clock.

A second unmanned flight test in 2022 revealed additional software issues and problems with some of the vehicle’s thrusters.

Stich, NASA’s program manager, suggested during a June 6 press conference that engineers may not have fully resolved these issues by 2022.

“We thought we had solved that problem,” Stich said, adding, “I think we’re missing something fundamental that’s going on inside the nozzle.”

Michael Lembeck, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who was a consultant to Boeing’s space flight division from 2009 to 2014, told CNN that it would be difficult to determine whether additional ground tests could have caught problems with the jets. at hand.

But Lembeck emphasized that evaluating the success of this test mission is not as simple as directly comparing it to the inaugural test flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon crew.

For example, he said, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule — Crew Dragon’s executive predecessor — completed more than a decade of uncrewed cargo missions to the space station before Crew Dragon took off.

“SpaceX had a head start with the cargo program,” Lembeck said. “I think they have an advantage that Boeing didn’t have.” Boeing is kind of forced to build a crew vehicle from scratch.”

However, if this Starliner test mission runs into more obstacles, it could put Boeing in a situation where it will have to rely on its rival to get Williams and Wilmore home.

“The nasty backup is that Crew Dragon would have to go and get the astronauts,” Lembeck said. The spacecraft “could be sent up with two crew members and sent back with four—and that would probably be the way home.”

Boeing executives have repeatedly sought to clarify that the Starliner program operates independently of the company’s other units — including the commercial aircraft division, which has been at the center of scandals for years.

“People fly on this vehicle. We always take it so seriously,” Nappi said during a press conference in April before the Starliner departed.

Nappi also stated at the time that the Starliner team was working at “peak performance” and was “really looking forward to executing” a safe mission.

When asked about the claim Tuesday, Stich, the NASA executive director, said Boeing and NASA officials always expected to find more problems during this test flight that needed to be addressed.

Williams alluded to that expectation during a pre-flight press conference, saying, “We’re always going to find something and we’re going to keep finding it.

“Everything won’t be absolutely perfect when we fly a spaceship. … We feel very safe and comfortable with how this spacecraft is flying, and we have backup procedures in case we need them,” Williams said.

However, Stitch acknowledged Tuesday that Boeing and NASA may have been able to prevent some of the problems the Starliner encountered: “Maybe we could have done other tests on the ground to characterize some of the (jet problems) ahead of time.” ” he said.