A second unmanned test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule – commissioned after an initial demonstration mission failed to reach the International Space Station – is now scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral in August or September, leaving little room for perform the first spacecraft flight with astronauts before the end of the year.
Boeing and NASA officials confirmed the new program in recent statements, after a delay earlier this year from the launch date of the previous test flight target, April 2. Managers blamed the plan for delaying software testing to prepare for the next test flight, including difficulties caused by a February winter storm that affected Houston’s Boeing software lab.
The CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is one of two commercially developed spacecraft developed by the US industry under contract with NASA. SpaceX is the other contractor of NASA’s commercial crew, and the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft began flying astronauts to the station last year.
Meanwhile, the Boeing Starliner is still a few months away from the second unplanned test flight initially unplanned, and a crew test flight is expected at least a few months later.
Officials said external considerations led the program to launch the second Starliner Orbital Flight Test or Boeing’s OFT-2 mission in August / September.
The Starliner spacecraft uses the same space station docking ports as the Dragon SpaceX crew and cargo ships. One of these ports is currently being taken over by a Crew Dragon capsule and both ports will be occupied a few days later this month, with the delivery of a Crew Dragon mission to the next.
The next Dragon SpaceX cargo mission is scheduled to launch on June 3 and will spend about a month and a half anchored with the space station to deliver fresh supplies, experiments and a new pair of solar arrays. This prevents a Starliner docking before the second half of July.
Operational crew and cargo missions are given priority over test flights in the space station program.
NASA and Boeing officials must also find a window into the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 launch program at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Unlike SpaceX, which launches Crew Dragon missions on its own Falcon 9 missiles, Boeing has contracted with ULA to increase the Starliner’s crew capsules into orbit.
ULA is a joint venture between 50 and 50 between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, but operates as an independent company and has other customers. The US space force currently has payloads scheduled for the launch of three Atlas 5 missions in May, June and August, carrying a new multi-billion dollar missile warning satellite, a menagerie of technological demonstration experiments and two payloads of space surveillance.
Boeing previously had a launch slot in early September reserved for the ULA for the Starliner’s crew flight test – the first astronaut capsule demonstration mission – when the OFT-2 mission was set for launch earlier this year. That launch slot is now available for the OFT-2 mission, and officials do not rule out going to the OFT-2 launch in August if one of the Space Forces delays one of its missions.
The Atlas 5 launch pad will be linked in late September to most of October in preparation for launching NASA’s Lucy robotic spacecraft on a marathon trip through the solar system to study asteroids. Lucy has a 23-day planetary launch window that opens on October 16, and NASA will give priority to the asteroid probe over the agency’s other missions.
Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said last week that the Starliner spacecraft assigned to the OFT-2 mission is in “good condition” because it is in training at a facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“It’s almost ready to launch,” Stich said.
In a statement, Boeing said it would be “ready for the mission” in May, if an opening appears in the Atlas 5 launch program.
“The Starliner team has completed all work on the OFT-2 vehicle, except for activities to be carried out closer to launch, such as loading cargo and refueling the spacecraft,” Boeing said. “The team also sent all verification and validation documents to NASA and is completing all actions recommended by the independent review team, including those that were not mandatory prior to OFT-2.”
Boeing needs more time to complete software testing on the Starliner spacecraft, while officials are waiting for an opening in the space station’s program and ULA’s launch manifesto, according to Stich. Boeing said in a statement that it expects to complete software simulations, including end-to-end trust and integration tests, before the end of April and will provide the results of NASA’s analysis.
Investigators blamed a software error for the failure of the OFT-1 mission to dock with the space station in 2019. A mission timer was incorrectly programmed, leading the spacecraft to believe it was in a different mission phase when separated from the Atlas 5 rocket after a successful departure from Cape Canaveral.
The error caused the Starliner capsule to burn more fuel than expected, consuming the fuel it needed to maneuver to the space station. Mission managers chose to end the mission early, and the spacecraft landed in New Mexico.
Assuming that the OFT-2 mission would come out of the buffer at the end of the summer, Stich said the Starliner’s flight test could take off “by the end of the calendar year.”
The crew’s flight test will take NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann to the space station. They will fly on the same reusable Starliner spacecraft that launched and landed in December 2019 on Boeing’s first orbital flight test, while the OFT-2 mission will fly on an unused vehicle.
Boeing said its crews are preparing for “the shortest possible time” between the OFT-2 mission and the crew’s flight test. Wilmore, Fincke and Mann recently matched up and boarded the spacecraft to fly the OFT-2 mission to verify life support and communications systems.
Once Boeing completes the remaining two Starliner test flights, NASA will certify the capsule for regular crew rotation missions to the space station, just as the agency did for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon last year.
NASA has nearly $ 7 billion in contracts with Boeing and SpaceX that cover the development of the crew’s two commercial spacecraft and six operational crew rotation flights by each company.
With the Boeing delays, SpaceX is likely to have launched four Crew Dragon missions with NASA astronauts – one test flight and three operational launches – before Starliner flew with humans for the first time.
Steve Jurczyk, NASA’s interim administrator, said the agency originally intended to alternate commercial crew missions between Boeing and SpaceX.
“The plan right now is to alternate – SpaceX, Boeing, SpaceX, Boeing – however, the first flight of the Boeing crew is delayed and we will most likely have four crew flights with SpaceX before the crew tests the flight with Boeing,” he said. Jurczyk on Tuesday. “So we may have to look at this, but we still haven’t gotten to talking about it.”
NASA will also soon begin looking at how and when to procure more commercial crew missions to meet the space station’s requirements after 2024, he said. But those discussions must come.
“We haven’t really talked in detail about how we’re going to go beyond current contracts and commitments,” Jurczyk said in an interview with Spaceflight Now.