This month, in White Sands, New Mexico, Boeing and NASA started testing the spacecraft’s broken propulsion system again.
NASA said on Thursday that Boeing’s crew aircraft Starliner will remain docked with the International Space Station until August. The mission is now on pause as the organization and business investigate issues that surfaced early in the voyage.
After delivering NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station, the Starliner capsule “Calypso” has remained in orbit for fifty days and counting. NASA completed testing on the ground before approving the spaceship to return the two men to Earth, therefore the Boeing crew flight test was postponed many times.
At a news conference on Thursday, NASA’s Commercial Crew manager Steve Stich stated that the organization was not ready to announce a return date.
Stich remarked, “We’re not quite ready to do that, but we’re making great progress.”
According to Stich, NASA must perform an evaluation, which won’t take place until the first week of August. Only then can the agency plan for Starliner’s return.
Because of the special conditions and mission’s developmental character, it is challenging to compare the indefinite extension of Starliner’s flight test to prior human spaceflights. There is increased danger and scrutiny associated with any crewed spacecraft. Calypso was originally supposed to stay in orbit for at least nine days before coming back.
We all understood, I believe, that it would take longer than that. We didn’t spend much time discussing how much longer, but Stich stated on Thursday, “I think it’s my regret that we didn’t just say we’re going to stay up there until we get everything done that we want to go to do.”
Leadership from NASA and Boeing has emphasized time and time again that Wilmore and Williams “are not stranded in space.” In the past, officials have stated that Starliner is safe to return in the case of an emergency and that the two astronauts are taking advantage of their additional time on the ISS by helping out the other members of the station’s crew while they wait.
Earlier this month, Boeing and NASA started testing the spacecraft’s broken propulsion system in White Sands, New Mexico.
Mark Nappi, vice president of the Starliner program at Boeing, together with Stich laid out the next steps that need to be taken before deciding when to bring back Starliner.
Boeing is wrapping up its disassembly of the thruster tested in New Mexico on Thursday. A mission management conference between NASA and Boeing is scheduled for Thursday afternoon in order to organize the docked test firings that are anticipated to take place on Saturday or Sunday. The teams will next conduct “an integrated assessment of all the data” from the docked testing on Monday or Tuesday, according to Stich. This will be followed by “some significant education of [NASA] leadership” prior to the last major review, which is also referred to as the “Agency Flight Test Readiness Review.”
NASA has backup plans in case it decides that Starliner should return without Wilmore and Williams, as Stich once again admitted. These preparations include utilizing SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to recover NASA’s astronauts.
“NASA has backup plans at all times. We haven’t spent a lot of time working on them, but we have a basic understanding of what those are, according to Stich. “We’re really focused on getting Butch and Suni back home on Starliner right now.”
