by Return to the World of Boeing Starliner capsules it is on indefinite hiatus pending the results of new thruster tests and ongoing analysis of helium leaks that emerged during the spacecraft’s docking with the International Space Station, NASA announced Friday.
But Starliner agency officials insisted commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams there is no “thread” in space.
“We don’t have a target (landing) date today,” Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, told reporters during a teleconference. “We are not going to target a specific date until that test is completed.
“Basically, the testing is complete, the fault tree is completed, that analysis is brought in (to the mission management team), and then reviewed at the agency level. And then we’ll lay out the rest of the plan from the undock to until the landing. . I think we are on a good path.”
The IS problem for NASA and Boeing that is the Starliner’s service module, which contains the helium lines, thrusters and other critical systems, is jettisoned before re-entry and burns up in the atmosphere.
Engineers won’t be able to study the hardware after the fact, and as a result, they want to collect as much data as possible before Wilmore and Williams go home.
But the crew’s repeated extended stay in the space station as that analysis continued prompted some observers to say that Wilmore and Williams are stuck in orbit, a perception that appears to have taken root in the absence of updates from NASA as was the target landing date. repeatedly pushed back.
Stich and Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Starliner program manager, said that description was a mischaracterization.
“It’s quite painful to read the things that are out there,” said Nappi. “We’ve had a really good test flight … and it’s looking pretty negative. We’re not stuck on ISS. The crew is in no danger, and there’s no increased risk when we decide to bring back Suni and Butch . to the ground.”
Stich added that he wants to “make it very clear that Butch and Suni are not stuck in space. Our plan is to get them back on Starliner and bring them back home at the right time. We have a little more work to do to get there for the final return, but they are safe on the space station. Their spacecraft are doing well, and they are enjoying their time on the space station.”
The Starliner was launched on June 5 on the program’s first pilot test flight with one known helium leak. The other four developed during the ship’s rendezvous with the space station when the jets were rapidly scraping to fine-tune the Starliner’s approach.
While they are closed at the station, valves are closed to isolate the helium system, thus eliminating any further leakage. But once Wilmore and Williams leave and go home, the valves will be reopened to repressurize the lines, or manifolds.
Stich said that even with the known leaks, the spacecraft will have 10 times the amount of helium it needs to get home, but engineers are trying to make sure the leaks don’t get worse when the system is under pressure again.
The five thrusters en route in the Starliner service module also failed to operate as expected during their arrival at the space station on June 6.
After entry, four of the five jets were successfully tested and despite slightly lower than expected power levels, they are considered good for take-off and re-entry. The fifth thruster was not “hot fired” as its earlier performance had shown that it had actually failed.
But managers are trying to find out what caused the unexpected behavior in the other four. Starting next week, a new thruster identical to the ones aboard the Starliner will be tested at a government facility at White Sands, New Mexico, just like the ones in orbit during the Starliner’s rendezvous and docking.
“We will recreate that profile,” Stich said. “Then we’ll put a pretty aggressive profile in the thruster for (the unlock-to-re-entry) phase.”
The glitches with the thrusters could have been caused by the higher-than-normal temperatures due to the Starliner’s orientation to the sun, or the rapid, repetitive firing sequence dictated by the flight software. Or both.
The ground tests, which are expected to last “a few weeks”, may provide evidence one way or the other.
“This will be a real opportunity to examine a thruster just as we had in space on the ground, a detailed inspection,” said Stich. “Once that test is done, then we’ll look at the landing plan.”
As for the sense that the crew is stuck in space, both Stich and Nappi pointed out that an unusual Russian satellite in a slightly lower and more tilted orbit than the space station suffered a catastrophic “event” on Wednesday that suffered more than 100 pieces of traceable debris.
While flight controllers assessed the wreckage’s trajectories, the station’s nine-member crew was told to “shelter in place” aboard their respective spacecraft, ready to leave immediately and return to Earth in the event of adverse impacts.
Two Russian cosmonauts and NASA’s Tracy Dyson boarded their Soyuz shuttle, while three other NASA astronauts and a cosmonaut boarded their SpaceX Crew Dragon. Wilmore and Williams rode out to safe haven inside the Starliner and were cleared to fly home if necessary.
After about an hour, the crew was given the all clear to return to normal work. If the Starliner had been deemed unsafe, Wilmore and Williams would likely have been asked to seek refuge in the Crew Dragon. But that was not the case.
“We are allowed to be a lifeboat in an emergency on ISS,” said Nappi. “That means we can come back with the Starliner at any time, and that was proven this week.”
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