It didn’t go perfectly.
Instead of returning home after about eight days, the spacecraft will remain docked at the station and its return will be postponed indefinitely while teams continue to troubleshoot a series of problems in the capsule’s propulsion system – helium leaks and some engines that failed at a critical moment in the flight.
While the top priority is ensuring NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore return safely to Earth, the technical delays and questions about whether Boeing can overcome them reflect not only how much is at stake for the future of the Starliner program, but also for the company’s future in space. Boeing desperately needs to prove it can safely transport astronauts and overcome the technical challenges plaguing the spacecraft – as well as the company’s commercial aviation division.
Once the mission is completed, NASA and Boeing undergone a rigorous process to certify Starliner for regular crew rotation missions with a full contingent of four astronauts for regular six-month stays on the station. Only then can Starliner complements SpaceX’s Dragon technology, which first launched astronauts for NASA in 2020, and fulfills a $4.2 billion contract NASA awarded to Boeing a decade ago.
NASA wants to use Boeing’s Starliner as America’s second transportation system to the space station. SpaceX has been handling that role alone since 2020, but NASA says it needs two systems in case one fails.
Years of setbacks, including a botched test flight without astronauts on board in 2019, have left Boeing with about $1.5 billion in cost overruns. Starliner must begin regular crew rotation flights again so Boeing can be paid for the missions.
“I’m very sure they’d look at this very carefully and wouldn’t commit to taking a spacecraft out of orbit if it wasn’t safe,” said Wayne Hale, NASA’s former space shuttle program director who also served as flight director for 40 shuttle flights. “Boeing and SpaceX make their money on the post-certification missions. Those are profitable flights. They want to recoup their development costs and actually make a profit on the exercise. So that’s important.”
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Starliner has a series of small helium leaks that have confused NASA and Boeing and led to numerous liftoff and return delays. Teams originally thought the leaks were due to a poor seal, but later said they weren’t sure what was behind it. They are also trying to figure out why five of the spacecraft’s small engines suddenly stopped working as the spacecraft approached the space station on June 6, forcing NASA to ask Boeing to secure the vehicle and re-fire the engines to get them running again.
The Starliner’s return was originally scheduled for June 18, but NASA pushed the date back to June 26. On Friday, the space agency pushed the date back again to later in July because teams needed more time to investigate problems with the propulsion system.
There is no rush to fly the astronauts home, NASA said; the helium leaks pose no threat to the return, it said. Four of the five engines are currently operating normally, and since the spacecraft is equipped with 28 such engines, there is enough redundancy, officials said. The spacecraft can remain docked in space for up to 45 days, giving crew members some breathing room to continue troubleshooting the problems.
NASA and Boeing have repeatedly stressed that Starliner is operational and can be deployed at any time to fly astronauts back to Earth in the event of an emergency on the space station.
“We are taking our time and following our standard process for mission management teams,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, in a statement. “We are letting the data guide our decisions regarding how to handle the small leaks in the helium system and engine performance we observed during rendezvous and docking.”
The solution to the engine problem and the helium leaks will play a crucial role in the certification test, officials said.
“We have to deal with the helium leaks,” Stich said at a press conference last week. “We’re not going to fly another mission like this one with helium leaks.” Teams also need to figure out what “is causing the engines to have little thrust,” he added. “So some of that work is ahead of us after this flight.”
The certification process, however, is not the agency’s primary concern right now. For now, “the whole team has been focused on understanding what’s happening with this vehicle for the crewed flight test and our plan for the return. So we haven’t looked too far ahead,” Stich said. “Later this summer, we’ll lay out all the work ahead of us after this vehicle comes back with the crew and then figure out how to proceed.”
To prepare for this work, Boeing and NASA want to collect as much data as possible about the systems. Boeing has already tested the engines while the spacecraft was docked to the space station. Boeing and NASA are working with simulators on the ground to test different scenarios to get to the root of the problems and ensure the vehicle is safe.
The certification process is a “careful review,” Hale said. “And both of those problems clearly need to be resolved” before NASA allows Boeing to fly a full crew of astronauts. He added that “engine failures and helium leaks are something we’ve dealt with all the time in the shuttle program. They were very common.”
Safety is the top priority, and the tragedy of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke up on its return from orbit in 2003, is still fresh in people’s minds, he said. “Those lessons are not forgotten,” he said.
To make matters worse, the helium and thruster problems are in the Starliner’s service module, which provides most of the spacecraft’s engine power. It will be jettisoned and burn up in the atmosphere before returning to Earth. Engineers are therefore keen to diagnose the problems while the hardware is still accessible. This, says Stich, will allow them to “gain valuable insight into the system improvements we plan to make for post-certification missions.”
Since “the service module isn’t coming back, they now need to get all the data they can from it,” said Mike Massimino, a former NASA astronaut and professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University. “To get that data, you have to stay in orbit as long as possible.”
Williams and Wilmore are also more than happy to remain in orbit, he said, especially since Williams was last in space in 2012 and Wilmore in 2015.
“Spending more time in space is a great thing,” he said. “I would love to be up there. They were both waiting on the flight. Why rush?”