{"id":12754,"date":"2019-12-21T22:02:30","date_gmt":"2019-12-21T14:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/starliner-targets-early-landing-in-new-mexico\/"},"modified":"2019-12-21T22:02:30","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T14:02:30","slug":"starliner-targets-early-landing-in-new-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/starliner-targets-early-landing-in-new-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Starliner targets early landing in New Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Artist\u2019s illustration of Boeing\u2019s Starliner spacecraft in orbit. Credit: Boeing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A day after a timing error caused it to enter the wrong orbit and miss its objective of meeting up with the International Space Station, Boeing\u2019s unpiloted Starliner crew capsule prepared for its next major test Sunday, when it will plunge back into the atmosphere and target a predawn landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

The commercial crew capsule, flying on its first space mission, is scheduled to land under parachutes in a remote corner of the U.S. Army\u2019s White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico at 7:57 a.m. EST (5:57 a.m. MST; 1257 GMT) Sunday.<\/p>\n

Approaching from the southwest, the 15-foot-wide (nearly 4.6-meter) spacecraft will deploy three main parachutes, jettison its head shield and inflate airbags to cushion its landing in the New Mexican desert.<\/p>\n

A backup landing opportunity is available at White Sands at 3:48 p.m. EST (1:48 p.m. MST; 2048 GMT) Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Starliner\u2019s return to Earth Sunday will cut short a planned eight-day mission that was to dock with the space station. But a mission elapsed timer on the capsule errantly led the spaceship to believe it was in a different phase of its mission the moment it separated from its launcher following an otherwise successful ascent from Cape Canaveral early Friday.<\/p>\n

The error caused the spacecraft to burn too much propellant to reach the space station, and ground teams had to manually send commands for the ship to boost itself into a safe, but unplanned orbit. Mission was only able to uplink the command after a brief communications outage with NASA\u2019s TDRS tracking and data relay satellite network, a compounding problem officials said was likely caused by the Starliner being in the wrong orientation due to the timing problem.<\/p>\n

Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing\u2019s space and launch division, said Saturday that a preliminary investigation has traced origin of the timing glitch to an error before the Starliner even lifted off Friday from Cape Canaveral atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur spacecraft needs to reach down into the Atlas 5 and figure out what time it is, where the Atlas 5 is in its mission profile, and then we set the clock based on that,\u201d he said. \u201cSomehow we reached in there and grabbed the wrong (number). This doesn\u2019t look like an Atlas problem. This looks like we reached in and grabbed the wrong coefficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of starting the clock at the wrong time, the spacecraft upon reaching space, she thought she was later in the mission, and, being autonomous, started to behave that way,\u201d Chilton said. \u201cAnd so it wasn\u2019t in the orbit we expected without the burn and it wasn\u2019t in the attitude expected and was, in fact, adjusting that attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n