In an update released late Friday evening, NASA said it was \u201cadjusting\u201d the date of the Starliner spacecraft\u2019s return to Earth from June 26 to an unspecified time in July.<\/p>\n
The announcement followed two days of long meetings to review the readiness of the spacecraft, developed by Boeing, to fly NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Earth. According to sources, these meetings included high-level participation from senior leaders at the agency, including Associate Administrator Jim Free.<\/p>\n
This \u201cCrew Flight Test,\u201d which launched on June 5 atop an Atlas V rocket, was originally due to undock and return to Earth on June 14. However, as engineers from NASA and Boeing studied data from the vehicle\u2019s problematic flight to the International Space Station, they have waved off several return opportunities.<\/p>\n
On Friday night they did so again, citing the need to spend more time reviewing data.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process,\u201d said Steve Stich, manager of NASA\u2019s Commercial Crew Program, in the NASA update. \u201cWe are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just a few days ago, on Tuesday, officials from NASA and Boeing set a return date to Earth for June 26. But that was before a series of meetings on Thursday and Friday during which mission managers were to review findings about two significant issues with the Starliner spacecraft: five separate leaks in the helium system that pressurizes Starliner\u2019s propulsion system and the failure of five of the vehicle\u2019s 28 reaction-control system thrusters as Starliner approached the station.<\/p>\n
The NASA update did not provide any information about deliberations during these meetings, but it is clear that the agency\u2019s leaders were not able to get comfortable with all contingencies that Wilmore and Williams might encounter during a return flight to Earth, including safely undocking from the space station, maneuvering away, performing a de-orbit burn, separating the crew capsule from the service module, and then flying through the planet\u2019s atmosphere before landing under parachutes in a New Mexico desert.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
Now, the NASA and Boeing engineering teams will take some more time. Sources said NASA considered June 30 as a possible return date, but the agency is also keen to perform a pair of spacewalks outside the station. These spacewalks, presently planned for June 24 and July 2, will now go ahead. Starliner will make its return to Earth sometime afterward, likely no earlier than the July 4 holiday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are strategically using the extra time to clear a path for some critical station activities while completing readiness for Butch and Suni\u2019s return on Starliner and gaining valuable insight into the system upgrades we will want to make for post-certification missions,\u201d Stich said.<\/p>\n
In some sense, it is helpful for NASA and Boeing to have Starliner docked to the space station for a longer period of time. They can gather more data about the performance of the vehicle on long-duration missions\u2014eventually Starliner will fly operational missions that will enable astronauts to stay on orbit for six months at a time.<\/p>\n
However, this vehicle is only rated for a 45-day stay at the space station, and that clock began ticking on June 6. Moreover, it is not optimal that NASA feels the need to continue delaying the vehicle to get comfortable with its performance on the return journey to Earth. During a pair of news conferences since Starliner docked to the station, officials have downplayed the overall seriousness of these issues\u2014repeatedly saying Starliner is cleared to come home \u201cin case of an emergency.\u201d But they have yet to fully explain why they are not yet comfortable with releasing Starliner to fly back to Earth under normal circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In an update released late Friday evening, NASA said it was \u201cadjusting\u201d the date of the Starliner spacecraft\u2019s return to Earth from June 26 to an unspecified time in July. The announcement followed two days of long meetings to review the readiness of the spacecraft, developed by Boeing, to fly NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45089,"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":[21,1306],"class_list":["post-45087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-space","tag-starliner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45087"}],"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=45087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}