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May 25, 2022 • 10 minutes ago • 3 minutes reading • Join the conversation
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The new, unmanned Boeing Starliner capsule was decoupled from the International Space Station on Wednesday to begin a descent back to Earth from its first voyage to the outpost, ending with a high-risk test flight such as the next NASA vehicle to take humans into orbit.
Less than a week after launching from the U.S. Space Force base at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the CST-100 Starliner was independently separated from the space station at 2:36 p.m. (1836 GMT) to undertake a return flight of more than five hours. .
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The decoupling occurred while the two vehicles were orbiting 257 miles (414 km) over Singapore, commentators said during a live NASA webcast about the maneuvers.
As the capsule moved away from the International Space Station to begin its orbital burning, an ISS crew member overseeing the launch, astronaut Bob Hines, sent a radio message to NASA: “We’re a little sad to see her leave, but it seems like a successful mission so far. Speed of God Starliner.”
If all goes well, the end of the mission will come with the rubber drop-shaped boat making a fiery atmospheric re-entry followed by a parachute with air cushions that will land on the desert floor near White Sands, New Mexico at 18:49 PDT (2249). GMT).
The Starliner was launched last Thursday on an Atlas V rocket supplied by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin United Launch Alliance and achieved its main goal: an appointment with the ISS, although four of its multiple thrusters on board do not malfunction along the way.
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Boeing engineers also had to improvise an alternative solution for a thermal control defect during the final approach of the capsule to the space station.
But NASA and Boeing officials said none of the problems encountered so far should prevent Starliner from returning safely, and attributed the problem to the learning process of developing a new spacecraft.
A successful mission would move the Starliner, beset by repeated delays and costly engineering setbacks, a major step closer to providing NASA with a reliable second route to transport astronauts to and from the space station.
Since resuming manned flights into orbit from U.S. soil in 2020, nine years after the end of the space shuttle program, the U.S. space agency has had to rely solely on Falcon rockets. 9 and the Crew Dragon capsules from the private company SpaceX by billionaire Elon Musk.
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Previously, the only other way to get to the lab in orbit was to take trips aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, a currently less attractive alternative in light of rising tensions between the US and Russia over the war in Ukraine. .
Boeing is also well on its way as the Chicago-based company struggles to emerge from successive crises in its aircraft and space defense business unit. The Starliner program alone has cost the company nearly $ 600 million over the past two and a half years.
An unfortunate first Starliner orbital test flight in late 2019 nearly ended the loss of the vehicle after a software bug that effectively thwarted the spacecraft’s ability to reach the space station.
Subsequent problems with the Starliner propulsion system, supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne, led Boeing to scour a second attempt to launch the capsule last summer.
Starliner remained on the ground for another nine months while the two companies argued over what caused the fuel valves to shut down and which company was responsible for fixing them.
The final test mission ending Wednesday could pave the way for Starliner to fly its first astronaut crew to the space station in the fall, NASA said.
The advanced orbiting site is currently home to a crew of three American astronauts from NASA, an Italian astronaut from the European Space Agency and three Russian cosmonauts. (Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Bradley Perrett and Sandra Maler)
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