It was a long summer for Boeing and NASA. The company’s Starliner returned to Earth last night without issue, but also without its crew, following a troubled test mission.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched on June 5 aboard Starliner for the agency’s Boeing Crewed Flight Test. It was the first ever crewed flight of the spacecraft, but it soon began experiencing helium leaks and thruster problems en route to the International Space Station (ISS).
After 2 months of testing and analyzing data, NASA decided to return the capsule to Earth without the crew as a safety precaution. Engineers figured out the cause of the problems in the service module, but were not confident that they could predict when the issues may occur again.
Following undocking last night, the Starliner performed a textbook return to Earth. It flew nominally towards White Sands, NM through deorbit, reentry and landing. No further thruster problems were observed.
Now what?
Starliner will now will ship to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where Boeing has processing facilities for the capsule. Engineers will inspect and process it, and review all mission-related data, before charting a path forward.
NASA does not necessarily require a redo of the mission either. It depends on what objectives were achieved, and why some were not. However, public perception alone makes another flight test seem like a wise decision. NASA has not said yet whether they will or won’t demand another flight test.
This was Starliner’s third flight test in space
This was the third orbital test of a Starliner. The first back in Dec 2019 didn’t go well at all. Shortly after it achieved orbit Starliner suffered an automated timing issue. Flight controllers called off ISS docking, and put Starliner in a stable orbit to save other critical flight test objectives. It returned to Earth two days later.
NASA wasn’t convinced, so Boeing offered to do it again at their own expense. A joint NASA/Boeing Independent Review Team found three principal anomalies—two software coding errors and an unexpected loss of Space-to-Ground Communications. They ordered over 80 recommendations for testing and simulation, Change Board documentation and safety culture, before the redo could launch.
Leading up to that second launch, more issues popped up. While on the launch pad, some valves linked to Starliner’s abort and maneuvering thrusters failed to open, leading to a scrub.
Boeing decided to replace the OFT-2 Service Module with one previously slated for the CFT mission. The OFT-2 service module is what just flew the CFT mission with thruster problems.
OFT-2 finally launched in May 2022, and while some minor issues were encountered, the mission met its remaining test objectives from OFT-1, and was a success.
Crew will return home with SpaceX on Crew-9 mission
SpaceX has been launching NASA astronauts to the ISS now for some time, and they are scheduled to launch the next as early as Sep 24.
The mission, Crew-9, was originally supposed to send four new astronauts to the ISS, replacing others so they can come home.
Now, they will only launch with two, leaving two seats open for Butch and Suni to finally come home. That mission will return to Earth in Feb 2025.
In the meantime, Butch and Suni have been staying busy on the ISS, assisting the Expedition 71 crew with research, maintenance and other tasks. We’re sure they don’t mind an extended trip in space.
