NASA, Boeing set to try launch again this month
Starliner mission must clear hurdles
Boeing is set to complete a goal years in the making this month: launching its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station.
The uncrewed flight dubbed Orbital Test Flight-2 is targeting liftoff atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on May 19 at 6:54 p.m. The spacecraft rolled out to Space Launch Complex-41 to be mated to the rocket on Wednesday, and a launch readiness review is coming up on May 11.
It’s a redo of a December 2019 flight that attempted but failed to dock with the station. Starliner was one of two vehicles along with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon given NASA contracts to provide ferry service to astronauts.
“This is a really important step and our continued goal of having two U.S. crew transportation capabilities to ISS,” said NASA’s Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate at a press conference Tuesday. “Robust crew services is really important to our sustained commitment to our research — the science and technology development that we’re doing on the ISS.”
Before it can launch, SpaceX has to open a parking space at the ISS with the return of Crew-3 on Crew Dragon Endurance, which is slated to undock early Thursday and splash down off the coast of Florida just at 12:37 a.m. Friday if weather allows. That will leave Crew-4 to welcome Starliner to the station a couple of weeks later.
“I can tell you the space station team is ready to support and we’re excited to have another vehicle on board,” said NASA’s Joel Montalbano, manager of the ISS program. “This mission is a major, major stepping stone ... We consider this a landmark flight.”
While SpaceX has surged forward, already having launched its fourth operational crew rota
tion flight last month, Boeing fell behind after a review of the 2019 launch that NASA labeled a “high visibility close call” led to a recommendation of 80 changes to the Commercial Crew Program offering that spanned hardware, software and operations.
Last August, Boeing having addressed all 80 issues, was set to follow through on its retest before a stuck valve issue ground the attempt to a halt, and forced a rollback of the spacecraft back to Boeing’s factory at Kennedy Space Center.
Boeing engineers believe they have identified the problem that caused the valves to stick — excess moisture that reacts with an oxidizer to cause corrosion— and have come up with a way to solve it, including sealing off more spaces around the valves, and cycling them open and closed leading up to launch to make sure they’re moving as expected.
“We’re confident that we understand the issue with the rigorous investigation that the team has undertaken,” said Boeing official Michelle Parker.
If successful, a crewed test flight could follow this year paving the way for Boeing to switch off with SpaceX on crew rotation missions.
“I think there are a lot of exciting things going on in space, and as space professionals, we’re always excited about everything that goes on. We certainly want to be a part of that,” Parker said. “Our focus really is getting through the successful mission and being able to deliver this capability to our customer.”