NASA Grounds Still-Not-Certified Starliner After Boeing’s Spacecraft Left Astronauts Stranded in the Space Station
2024 will enter history as aeronautic giant Boeing’s ‘annus horribilis’. So catastrophic was this lap around the sun that it led newspapers like Business Insider to pen headlines line Boeing’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.
Besides the endless problems with its airplanes, workers strikes and charges by whistleblowers, perhaps the most high-profile black eye on the company’s reputation was the endless issues with its spacecraft Starliner.
Due to Starliner’s embarrassing maiden crewed flight that left two astronauts stranded in space, NASA decided to use SpaceX’s Dragon for the upcoming flights to the International Space Station (ISS) while it decides what to do with Boeing’s trouble-plagued spacecraft.
Gizmodo reported:
“This week, NASA announced that a Crew Dragon will launch its Crew-10 mission no earlier than February 2025, followed by the Crew-11 mission no earlier than July 2025, delaying Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner’s next chance at flying to the ISS. NASA had hoped that Starliner would launch its first operational mission by early next year but the spacecraft’s first crewed test flight proved to be a complete fiasco, leaving Boeing nowhere near its coveted certification.
‘The timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established’, NASA wrote in its update. ‘This determination will include considerations for incorporating Crew Flight Test lessons learned, approvals of final certification products, and operational readiness’.”
For the Starliner certification, NASA is eyeing a Starliner flight sometime in 2025. But it’s unclear if this flight would have a crew on board or whether the spacecraft will fly solo to the Space Station.
The Starliner launched to the ISS on June 5, crewed by astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams.
Instead of an eight-day round trip, it remained docked to for three months as teams on the ground debated whether or not to return the crew on board of the flawed craft.
“During its trip to the ISS, five of the spacecraft’s thrusters failed and the spacecraft developed five helium leaks, one of which was identified prior to liftoff. Mission teams ran tests on the ground to try and identify the main issue behind the thruster glitch before ultimately deciding to return an uncrewed Starliner and bring back its crew on board SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. Wilmore and Williams will return to Earth with SpaceX Crew-9 in February 2025, having spent eight months on board the ISS as opposed to the original plan of a week-long mission in orbit.
In 2014, NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX contracts as part of the space agency’s Commercial Crew Program to develop spacecraft capable of carrying crew and cargo to the ISS. At the time, Boeing was a well-known force in the industry while SpaceX was a relative newcomer with a lot to prove. Over the past four years, SpaceX exceeded expectations, launching nine crews to the space station while Boeing is still struggling to get certified for its first mission.”
Boeing hasn’t fulfilled its $4.3 billion Commercial Crew Program contract with NASA. The Starliner, first conceived in 2010, was built upon a long legacy of designing and building crafts for the Apollo project, but it ended up plagued by delays and failures.
The first unmanned test flight in 2019 did manage to reach space, but it burned excess fuel, and it did not reach the to the ISS. The craft miscalculated its location due to a glitch caused by a faulty mission elapsed timer.
A second test flight with an empty spacecraft was needed before a crew was to ride on board.
“NASA’s retirement of the Space Shuttle prompted the need for a new spaceship for its ISS astronauts. The space agency sought to wean itself off dependence on Russia’s Soyuz for crew transport and invested heavily in developing partnerships with private aerospace companies.”
Despite Starliner’s lackluster unmanned flights, NASA still greenlit the crewed test flight. But the hopes that it would be ready to transport crew on a regular basis have so far been crushed.
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