As it approaches the thick inner layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft will ignite its thrusters with a flash of heat and speed before deploying parachutes to slow its descent. It is expected to land on sand in a remote area of the New Mexican desert called White Sands, which has long been the site of aerospace and weapons testing.
If all goes well with the landing, the Starliner, which is only manned by a mannequin wearing a space suit for this test mission, could blow up its first payload of NASA astronauts on the ISS by the end of 2022.
This test mission, however, has already encountered some minor setbacks, including problems with four of the propellers aboard the spacecraft, which orient and maneuver the vehicle as it flies through space. The hitchhiker did not affect the overall mission, as the Starliner is equipped with backups, Boeing and NASA officials told reporters. But it raises questions about the root cause of the problem and whether it could point to deeper problems in a spacecraft that has faced numerous technical problems throughout its development.
A number of data and hardware issues also hampered Starliner’s ability to dock to the ISS on Friday.
“I don’t know about you, but the last few hours have been unbearable,” NASA Associate Administrator Kathryn Lueders told a news conference Friday night. “Seeing that beautiful spaceship out of reach of the ISS was quite difficult. But as we’ve been talking about for the last few days, this is a really critical demonstration.”
Finally, the spacecraft was able to dock at its port after about an hour’s delay.
In particular, the first attempt to send the Starliner to an orbital test in late 2019 had to be interrupted, returning the vehicle directly to the ground instead of docking it to the ISS, after software problems they diverted the vehicle. It took almost two years of troubleshooting before the Starliner was ready to return to the launch pad. At the time, a problem with the sticky valves further delayed the capsule’s return to flight.
Despite its setbacks, NASA has sided with Boeing, one of two companies — the other is SpaceX — which the space agency used to build an astronaut-worthy spacecraft after the spacecraft. The Space Shuttle program was withdrawn in 2011. Although even the space agency initially expected Boeing, a NASA partner for decades, to beat SpaceX on the launch pad, Boeing is now two years away. behind his rival.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft went live in 2020 and has so far completed five missions for NASA.
Once this Starliner test mission is over, NASA and Boeing will work through the data collected by the spacecraft and try to reach an agreement that is ready to fly astronauts.
“We plan to learn a lot,” Boeing’s Starliner program director Mark Nappi said Friday. “We will take this information and apply it to the development of our spacecraft. We are very pleased with what we have learned from how the team has reacted.”
NASA’s hope is that Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon will give redundancy to its human spaceflight program, which means that if one spacecraft or the other is found and has to land, , will not affect NASA’s ability to bring the crew to the ISS.