{"id":10086,"date":"2024-06-14T22:40:30","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T14:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-boeing-set-new-undocking-landing-date-for-starliner-spacecraft\/"},"modified":"2024-06-14T22:40:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T14:40:30","slug":"nasa-boeing-set-new-undocking-landing-date-for-starliner-spacecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-boeing-set-new-undocking-landing-date-for-starliner-spacecraft\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA, Boeing set new undocking, landing date for Starliner spacecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_66481\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66481\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66481\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_Starliner_docked.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"584\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_Starliner_docked.jpeg 876w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_Starliner_docked-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_Starliner_docked-678x452.jpeg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_Starliner_docked-768x512.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66481\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This view from a window on the cupola overlooks a portion of the International Space and shows the partially obscured Starliner spacecraft from Boeing docked to the Harmony module\u2019s forward port. Image: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>NASA and Boeing teams pushed back the target undocking and landing date for the Starliner spacecraft from the International Space Station by four days. They shifted from June 18 to now no earlier than June 22.<\/p>\n<p>The reason for the extended stay is in part due to a need to gather more information about the Starliner capsule with the benefit of having an astronaut crew assigned to study aspects of the spacecraft with additional detail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe crew can do more detailed testing into the various aspects of the spacecraft hardware with the additional time in orbit. It\u2019s an opportunity that is important because the spacecraft is new and this is the first time carrying a crew that can perform this testing on-orbit,\u201d a NASA spokesperson told Spaceflight Now. \u201cEven though an effort is repeated, the additional work gives them a chance to refine what they saw the first time and pass more knowledge to the crews of Starliner missions to come.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of the work that will be done in the next several days will also be to better understand some of the anomalies that Starliner experienced during its journey to the orbiting outpost and while docked.<\/p>\n<p>A total of five helium leaks were identified over the course of the mission so far, beginning with the one characterized following the May 6 launch scrub. Ground teams are also studying a reaction control system (RCS) thruster oxidizer isolation valve in Starliner\u2019s service module \u201cthat is not properly closed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8UuzdHamJpA\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>During the rendezvous process, some thrusters that were acting out of character were taken offline temporarily by the spacecraft\u2019s software. One of the five thrusters that was misbehaving was left offline for docking.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Stich, NASA\u2019s Commercial Crew Program manager, characterized the issue during a post-docking news briefing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese thrusters are similar to what we saw in OFT-2. We don\u2019t quite understand why they\u2019re happening. We took a couple of actions in the software to mitigate potential fail-offs by the [guidance, navigation and control] part of the software,\u201d Stich said on June 6. \u201cAgain, we recovered the thrusters and they were working just fine during the rendezvous except for one that we left inhibited. These are not at all related to the helium leak. The helium leak is separate, they\u2019re in different doghouses, it\u2019s different thrusters. So, the helium leak and the thrusters are not at all related.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a statement on Friday, NASA said flight controllers planned to \u201cfire seven of its eight aft-facing thrusters while docked to the station to evaluate thruster performance for the remainder of the mission.\u201d There will be two burns during the hot fire test, each lasting about a second.<\/p>\n<p>There are also new crew activities being added to the schedule for NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who docked Starliner to the ISS on June 6, a day after their launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are continuing to understand the capabilities of Starliner to prepare for the long-term goal of having it perform a six-month docked mission at the space station,\u201d Stich said in NASA\u2019s June 14 blog post. \u201cThe crew will perform additional hatch operations to better understand its handling, repeat some \u2018safe haven\u2019 testing and assess piloting using the forward window.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since arriving, they\u2019ve also performed a number of tasks directly related to their Crew Flight Test mission, but have also lent their talents to station upkeep, assisting with spacewalk activities and performing some scientific research.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_66482\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66482\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-66482\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_suni-gismos-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"499\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_suni-gismos-3.jpg 876w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_suni-gismos-3-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_suni-gismos-3-678x386.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240614_suni-gismos-3-768x437.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66482\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Suni Williams supports the Genes in Space Molecular Operations and Sequencing, or GiSMOS, experiment on June 12. Image: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>ISS mission managers intentionally kept the station schedule fairly open to allow for maneuvering room when it came to the timing of launch and docking as well as for the duration of the spacecraft attached to the station.<\/p>\n<p>NASA and Boeing team leaders will provide additional details on the progress of the test flight during a press briefing at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 UTC) on Tuesday, June 18. The primary and backup landing sites for Starliner in the southwestern United States are still being determined.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have an incredible opportunity to spend more time at station and perform more tests which provides invaluable data unique to our position,\u201d said Mark Nappi, Boeing\u2019s vice president and program manager of its Commercial Crew Program division. \u201cAs the integrated NASA and Boeing teams have said each step of the way, we have plenty of margin and time on station to maximize the opportunity for all partners to learn \u2013 including our crew.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This view from a window on the cupola overlooks a portion of the International Space and shows the partially obscured Starliner spacecraft from Boeing docked to the Harmony module\u2019s forward port. Image: NASA NASA and Boeing teams pushed back the target undocking and landing date for the Starliner spacecraft from the International Space Station by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[670,822,190,1306],"class_list":["post-10086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-boeing","tag-cst-100-starliner-crew-flight-test","tag-nasa","tag-starliner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}