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NASA Pushes First Operational Boeing Starliner Mission to 2024

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Boeing’s Starliner approaching the ISS on May 20, 2022.
Photo: NASA

The first operational mission of Boeing’s Starliner CST-100 spacecraft to the International Space Station won’t happen until 2024 at the earliest, according to NASA’s updated flight manifest. The capsule, designed to carry crews to low Earth orbit, was originally supposed to fly in 2017 but has faced a series of delays.

The first crewed test flight of Starliner will happen in April 2023 and not in February as planned, NASA announced late last week. The reason, says the space agency, is to avoid a scheduling conflict with the SpaceX Crew-6 mission to the ISS, which is planned for mid-February. “NASA and Boeing are currently working together to achieve flight readiness,” the space agency said. NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore have been assigned to the Boeing Crewed Flight Test (CFT).

NASA also took the move of rescheduling the SpaceX Crew-7 mission, which will now launch in late 2023 as opposed to early 2024. This schedule-juggling means no operational flights for Starliner are planned for the coming year and that the spacecraft, assuming it gets certified in 2023, won’t fly its first bona fide mission until 2024 at the earliest.

In May, the second uncrewed flight test of Starliner, OFT-2, went reasonably well, but the mission to the ISS exposed some issues that Boeing and NASA are currently working to resolve. “The joint team continues to close out the OFT-2 anomalies and partner closely together to identify forward work and ensure all requirements for crewed flight are met,” NASA said, adding that the team is “working on a variety of verification efforts across several critical systems that will be used for Starliner’s crew flight certification.”

Opaque and vague, as is typical of NASA in its public statements about private partners. Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight at NASA, provided more details during an October 31 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s Human Exploration and Operations Committee, SpaceNews reported. “There were several in-flight anomalies that we had to assess” from OFT-2, he said. “Some of that is still ongoing. That work has to be completed and closed out before the CFT flight.” In addition to thruster problems that are “pretty well understood and in hand,” the team is working on parachutes and software. McAlister said he “wouldn’t characterize anything as major.”

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Depending on how the CFT mission unfolds, Starliner could finally get certified next year, followed by regular crew rotation missions to the ISS. But as the rescheduling of the Crew-7 mission shows, NASA’s not making any assumptions about the spacecraft’s pending availability—and for good reason. The Boeing commercial crew project has been beset with difficulties, highlighted by a flubbed first flight test in 2019 and a scrubbed launch attempt in 2020, in which corrosion caused the capsule’s valves to get stuck.

NASA has had to lean harder on its other commercial crew partner, SpaceX, as a result. The Elon Musk-led company, using its Crew Dragon spacecraft, has been launching astronauts to the ISS since November 2020. The point of choosing two vendors was to create some redundancy, but that’s yet to happen. “While it is fortunate that the U.S. has one operating ISS crew launch provider, we need to continue to express our serious concern with the impact of the ongoing delays of the CST-100 program on the commercial crew program,” said Mark Sirangelo, a member of the October 31 panel and a scholar in residence for space, aerospace and engineering at University of Colorado, as reported in SpaceNews.

NASA, unwilling and unable to wait for Starliner, recently booked a bunch of crewed launches with SpaceX, namely Crew-7 through to Crew-14. With these newly added missions, NASA has secured access to the ISS up until 2030, after which time the orbital lab is expected to be retired. Starliner, by contrast, is booked for just six flights.

NASA awarded Boeing the $4.2 billion commercial crew contract in 2014. In October, Boeing announced that it’s taking a $190 million hit on Starliner, raising the company’s total loss on the program to $883 million. Adding insult to injury, Boeing slipped behind SpaceX on NASA’s roster of private partners during fiscal year 2022.

More: NASA’s Megarocket Rolls Back to Launch Pad, With Blastoff Just 10 Days Away

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Boeing’s Starliner launch pushed back until April • The Register

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The first crewed launch of Boeing’s Starliner has been delayed again, this time being pushed back to April 2023 from an earlier planned launch date of February.

The change came with little announcement from NASA, which tweeted out the new date as a scheduling update without any additional details. In an accompanying blog post, NASA said the change was being made to eliminate conflicts between “visiting spacecraft traffic at the space station,” but the agency didn’t elaborate much beyond that.

Starliner has been a drag on Boeing since the company unveiled the capsule in 2010. According to Boeing’s Q3 2022 filing, Starliner has lost the company $883 million since 2019.

That was the year Starliner made its first attempt at an uncrewed launch and docking with the International Space Station, which failed due to a pair of software errors that left it unable to dock and saw it returned to Earth early under less-than-ideal circumstances.

Attempts at a second launch in 2021 also failed when 13 of the Calamity Capsule’s propulsion system valves failed pre-flight checks. Starliner only made it to the ISS for the first time this past May, but even that launch wasn’t without issues as two of the craft’s 12 thrusters failed once in orbit.

NASA still has Starliner concerns

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) met on October 27 to discuss, among other things [PDF], updates on the Commercial Crew Program. ASAP panel member Mark Sirangelo said that issues remaining after the uncrewed launch in May could continue to have an effect – like delaying Starliner’s crewed launch, a decision made by NASA after the October 27 meeting, though it isn’t clear if ASAP’s discussion influenced its choice.

According to Sirangelo, the uncrewed launch in May “produced a number of in-flight anomalies that will need to be worked prior to the next flight test.”

Sirangelo also said that the new Starliner software would need to undergo additional avionics software integration lab testing prior to the launch. 

If and when Starliner carries crew to the ISS, it’ll be flown by Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, who will stay on the ISS for around two weeks. Once the test flight is complete, Boeing will have a few other certification steps to take before it can elbow its way into the commercial launch rotation among SpaceX’s regular runs to the orbital lab. 

NASA said that SpaceX’s Dragon Endeavour will mark its fourth flight to the ISS when it launches in February on its Crew-6 mission, the month Starliner was originally scheduled for its first crewed flight. That launch will make Dragon Endeavour “the spacecraft fleet leader in number of flights to and from the station,” NASA said. 

Crew-7, meanwhile, is being planned for some time in the fall of 2023. Whether Starliner will get a chance to deliver humans to the ISS between those flights remains to be seen, but those willing to place a bet might want to wait until April to see if the Calamity Capsule can finally shed that pejorative. ®



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Yes, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft really could fly astronauts this year

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Enlarge / Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 mission launches on May 19, 2022.

Trevor Mahlmann

Five weeks have passed since Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft returned from a largely successful test flight to the International Space Station, and the company continues to review data from the mission alongside engineers from NASA.

So far, there have been no showstoppers. In fact, sources say, the relatively clean performance of Starliner has increased the possibility that the vehicle could make its first crewed flight this year in December.

This mission, called the Crew Flight Test, will likely carry two astronauts to the space station. If successful, it would clear the way for long-duration, operational missions to the space station in 2023 and give NASA a much-coveted second means of getting astronauts into space.

Two weeks ago, NASA publicly announced that veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams would serve as the prime crew for this test flight. NASA also said a short-duration mission with two astronaut test pilots is sufficient to meet all of the test objectives for the flight test. However, the agency added, this mission could be extended or shortened based on the staffing needs of the station. For example, NASA said it might even add an astronaut and extend the mission if the need arose.

Based on NASA’s internal schedules, however, it appears the agency may opt for a shorter six-day trip. On a revised schedule this week, the Starliner test flight showed a December 8 launch date, with a subsequent docking at the space station from December 9 to December 14.

This date is far from written in stone. It is subject to adjustment for a variety of reasons, including the ongoing review of data from Starliner’s first test flight in May, as well as docking port availability on the space station. However, that such a date is now appearing on the schedule indicates a reasonable possibility that Starliner will make a second flight this year.

A NASA spokesman, Josh Finch, said the agency was not ready to formally set a launch date for Boeing’s Crew Flight Test.

“Boeing is working to be hardware ready in support of the company’s crewed flight test this year,” Finch said. “The Starliner team is in the process of delivering the initial uncrewed flight test data to NASA and jointly determining forward work ahead of crewed flight. Engineering and program reviews are continuing, culminating in a launch schedule assessment toward the end of July based on spacecraft readiness, space station scheduling needs, and Eastern Range availability.”

Following this assessment, Finch said, NASA plans to provide a status update, which will likely include a launch target.

One of the major factors is docking port availability. There are two ports on the space station fitted with an “international docking adapter,” and they must be shared by SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, Cargo Dragon 2, and Starliner. This summer and fall, NASA presently has three SpaceX missions flights that will use those ports: the CRS-25 and -26 cargo missions and the Crew-5 launch. At present, however, there is a docking port available from December 1 to January 14. After this, SpaceX’s CRS-27 cargo mission would need the spare port.

Assuming no more major slippage in the launch of the SpaceX vehicles, and assuming that Starliner gets a clean bill of health from its data review, this window is probably when Boeing and NASA will go for Starliner’s next flight.

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NASA Selects Astronauts to Fly on First Crewed Starliner Test Flight

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In anticipation of Boeing’s first crewed test flight of Starliner, NASA has chosen two astronauts to fly on board the troubled spacecraft, in a mission that could launch later this year.

On Friday, NASA announced that veteran astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will fly on board the Crew Flight Test (CFT), the launch date of which will be determined by end of July, according to the space agency. Following the completion of the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) in May, which launched the spacecraft to the ISS and back, Boeing is ready to test Starliner with a two-person crew strapped inside.

These tests are crucial for Boeing’s $4.3 billion contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which, if all goes well, will be transporting astronauts to the ISS via a CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. But OFT-2 suffered from a few hiccups, including the failure of a thruster used for orbital maneuvering, not to mention the slew of problems and delays that have marred the program. Still, NASA seems intent on following through with Boeing’s Starliner, despite purchasing five additional missions from SpaceX, the agency’s other commercial partner, which has been flying astronauts to the ISS since 2020.

For the first CFT, Wilmore, who spent six months on the ISS from 2014 to 2015, will command the mission, while Williams, who served on two long duration ISS missions from 2006 to 2007 and again in 2012, will pilot Boeing’s reusable capsule. NASA had to reshuffle its inaugural Starliner crew, replacing NASA astronaut Nicole Mann with Williams. Mann was instead assigned to SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission, which is scheduled for launch in September. NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, who was previously assigned as the Joint Operations Commander for CFT, will now be training as a backup pilot for the first CFT mission.

“Based upon current space station resources and scheduling needs, a short duration mission with two astronaut test pilots is sufficient to meet all NASA and Boeing test objectives for CFT, which include demonstrating Starliner’s ability to safely fly operational crewed missions to and from the space station,” NASA wrote in a statement.

Boeing’s Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. If all goes well, NASA could certify Starliner for regular, long-duration crewed missions to the ISS.

More: Our First Glimpse of Boeing’s Upcoming Starliner Spacesuit

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Boeing’s Starliner returns from space station

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NASA and Boeing landed the CST-100 Starliner in New Mexico on Wednesday. 

The landing marked the completion of the spacecraft’s unmanned Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) to the International Space Station (ISS). 

The capsule parachuted down to Earth about four hours after departing the orbiting laboratory.

NASA said the Boeing Starliner mission was a “critical step in validating the performance of Boeing’s systems” and that OFT-2 “brings the nation a significant step closer to having two unique human transportation systems to carry astronauts to and from the space station from U.S. soil.”

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX is already the established leader, launching astronauts — and tourists — into space since 2020.

“NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and our industry partner, Boeing, today took a major and successful step on the journey to enabling more human spaceflight missions to the International Space Station on American spacecraft from American soil,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. 

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“The OFT-2 mission represents the power of collaboration, which allows us to innovate for the benefit of humanity and inspire the world through discovery. This golden era of spaceflight wouldn’t be possible without the thousands of individuals who persevered and poured their passion into this great achievement,” he added.

“I am incredibly proud of the dedication and perseverance shown by the NASA, Boeing and ULA team culminating in the successful completion of Starliner’s second Orbital Flight Test from start to finish,” Steve Stich, the manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. “Throughout this process, Starliner has provided a tremendous amount of valuable data, which we’re continuing to assess in our effort to bring the spacecraft online and fully operational for crew flights to the space station as soon as it is safe to do so.”

Former NASA Astronaut Clayton Anderson discusses the evolution of space exploration, the SpaceX launch, China’s space efforts and NASA delaying its human lunar landing goal.

The flight test began on May 19. Starliner launched on the ULA Atlas V rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It docked to the ISS on Friday, after which astronauts there tested Starliner’s communication and computer systems and uploaded supplies.

Boeing scrapped its first attempt to reach the space station in 2019 after software errors. The problem was fixed last summer, but corroded valves stymied a second attempt. 

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After NASA and Boeing review data from this test flight, teams will continue plans for Starliner and its next mission, the Crew Flight Test to the space station.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Boeing’s Starliner Has Landed, but Questions Remain After Imperfect Mission

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Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft safely touched down at White Sands Missile Range’s Space Harbor.
Photo: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Boeing’s Starliner successfully touched down yesterday on the sandy surface of the New Mexico desert, marking the completion of the first uncrewed end-to-end test of the spacecraft. It was a picture-perfect landing, but the six-day mission was not without problems.

The CST-100 Starliner spacecraft landed on Wednesday at 4:49 p.m. local time (6:49 p.m. EDT) at at White Sands Missile Range’s Space Harbor after spending six days in low Earth orbit. The spacecraft departed from the space station with more than 600 pounds (270 kilograms) of cargo, including three spent nitrogen oxygen reusable tanks that provided breathable air to ISS crew members.

Four hours after undocking from the orbital outpost, Starliner deployed three parachutes and six airbags to help bring it to a smooth touchdown. A team will now transport the vehicle back to the company’s facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for processing.

The test flight is part of Boeing’s $4.3 billion contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to provide rides for its astronauts to and from the ISS. But Boeing had fallen behind on delivering a viable spacecraft after two previous failed test attempts, one in 2019 and one last year. Meanwhile, its commercial counterpart SpaceX (which was awarded a $2.6 billion contract from NASA) has been dropping off astronauts at the ISS for the past two years now.

The completion of this end-to-end test flight, called Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), has been a long time coming, but it’s already clear that there were several problems during the mission.

The Starliner CST-100 spacecraft launched on May 19 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. About 30 minutes after liftoff, one of 12 thrusters responsible for orbital maneuvering malfunctioned, followed by a failure of a backup thruster, as Steve Sitch, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, explained at a post-launch press conference. An issue with equipment that keeps Starliner cool also emerged shortly into the mission.

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When it came time to rendezvous with the ISS, a ring responsible for latching onto the station failed to deploy in the correct manner, causing Starliner to miss its scheduled contact time by over an hour, according to AFP. And shortly after touchdown, the recovery team detected hydrazine vapor—a flammable oily liquid that’s dangerous to inhale—around the spacecraft. This lingering chemical, which forced the recovery team to temporarily back off, may have been a result of Starliner not burning through all of its propellant, Stich said during a post-touchdown briefing. No leaks were detected, he added.

Despite these issues, the team behind the mission still seemed optimistic. “We have a few things to work on…but I don’t really see any showstoppers,” Stich told reporters at the briefing. NASA and Boeing will now carefully analyze and scrutinize the mission data, which will inform the next steps. Assuming the problems experienced during OFT-2 are as minor as Stich is making them out to be, a crewed test flight of Starliner could happen later this year.

During its brief time in low Earth orbit, the Starliner was attended to by ISS crew members, who gave a video tour of the spacecraft while it was docked. The crew even got to meet Rosie the Rocketeer, a test manikin that’s equipped with 15 sensors to relay what astronauts on board the spacecraft would have experienced during the journey. Although Rosie didn’t have much to say, NASA astronaut Robert Hines pointed at the manikin in the commander’s seat, saying “she’s got a great view out her window over there.”

Hopefully, Boeing will resolve Starliner’s issues before the spacecraft transports actual astronauts, and not just Rosie.

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Boeing’s Starliner safely returns to Earth after second test flight

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Boeing’s Starliner has returned to Earth safely after docking with the International Space Station for the first time. The six-day Boeing Orbital Flight Test-2 mission came to an end when the spacecraft landed at the US Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It’s the first American capsule to touch down on land instead of in the ocean. Starliner undocked from the ISS at 2:36PM ET and by 6:05PM, it was firing its thrusters to drop out of orbit. 

The uncrewed Starliner, which took over 800 pounds of equipment to the ISS (including a Kerbal Space Program plush toy), brought back over 600 pounds of cargo. Among the returned items were reusable Nitrogen Oxygen Recharge System tanks, which are used to provide air to those on the ISS. They’ll be refilled and taken back to the space station later.

The spacecraft’s first test flight took place in 2019. While it reached orbit, an automation system issue prevented thrusters from firing, meaning Starliner was unable to dock with the ISS. An attempt at a second test flight last year was scrapped because of a propulsion system valve problem, which led to a nine-month delay. In the interim, SpaceX conducted more crewed trips to the ISS than previously planned. 

After assessing the data from this flight, Boeing will be able to start planning crewed flights that will take astronauts to the space station and bring them back to Earth. The New York Times says NASA will announce the astronauts who’ll be flying on Starliner this summer, and the mission could take place before the year ends. 

Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Boeing Commercial Crew Program, said:

“We have had an excellent flight test of a complex system that we expected to learn from along the way and we have With the completion of OFT-2, we will incorporate lessons learned and continue working to prepare for the crewed flight test and NASA certification. Thank you to the NASA and Boeing teammates who have put so much of themselves into Starliner.”

Mariella Moon contributed to this story.

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Being Starliner returns to Earth

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Boeing’s Starliner space capsule landed in the New Mexico desert Wednesday, completing a six-day mission in which it finally reached the International Space Station and that could lead to flights with astronauts.

The capsule, without any crew on board, touched down as scheduled at 6:49 p.m. Eastern time at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico under a trio of parachutes. Air bags cushioned the landing.

The landing was the last step of a crucial test for Boeing and NASA, which required the aerospace company to prove it could safely fly the vehicle to the station and back autonomously before allowing it to fly astronauts.

The return flight went smoothly, NASA and Boeing said, from undocking with the space station, then firing its thrusters to deorbit and entering the atmosphere. As it plunged back toward Earth, its heat shield endured temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Just a beautiful touchdown in White Sands this evening,” Lauren Seabrook, a Boeing spokesperson, said on the live broadcast of the landing.

She added that the spacecraft landed about three-tenths-of-a-mile southeast of the landing site, “which is basically a bull’s eye,” she said.

It is unclear, however, when the first crewed flight would happen.

On its way to the station, two of its main thrusters cut off after sensors recorded problems. Backups kicked in without delay, putting the spacecraft on the right path to the station, but once it got close to the station, two other, smaller thrusters, used to position the spacecraft for docking, also had problems, Boeing said. In addition, the spacecraft’s thermal control system, used to keep the spacecraft at the right temperature, also failed.

Despite those challenges, NASA and Boeing hailed the mission as a “historic” first that would give the space agency an alternative to SpaceX for carrying cargo and astronauts to the station. Mark Nappi, a Boeing vice president who oversees the Starliner program, said that despite the problems, the “spacecraft is in excellent condition,” and that it “performed like it was supposed to.”

Steve Stich, who runs NASA’s commercial crew program, said last week that the problems were overcome without too much trouble but that the “failures” would have to be studied.

“We have a lot of redundancy so that really didn’t affect the rendezvous operations at all or affect the rest of the flight,” he said after the docking. “I know after the flight, we’ll go study the failures there and see what happened.”

That investigation is made more difficult by the fact that engineers on the ground won’t be able to examine the two main thrusters that cut out since they are housed in the spacecraft’s service module, which was jettisoned during the return.

Still, NASA and Boeing celebrated the flight as a success. During a post-flight briefing Wednesday evening, Stich said the “test flight was extremely successful. We met all the mission objectives.” He added that “the systems performed great on the vehicle and, you know, once we work through all the data, we’ll be ready to fly the crew on the vehicle.”

While there were several issues along the way, he said there were no “showstoppers.” Despite the problems with the thrusters, he said, “I don’t see any reason why we can’t proceed toward a crewed flight test next.”

Nappi added that “we are extremely pleased with the result of this mission.”

Boeing and NASA have said they would like to be able to fly a mission with astronauts by the end of the year, but they would first need to make sure they understand all of the issues that cropped up as well as study the data they have from the capsule now that it is back on the ground.

The program is already delayed by years after a series of previous problems. Boeing first attempted the uncrewed test flight in December 2019. But it had to cut the test short after a major software problem and a communications failure caused the spacecraft to burn too much fuel and not enter an orbit that would carry it to the space station. It took 20 months before the company tried again, but that flight failed even to get off the ground last August when engineers discovered that 13 valves in the service module were stuck in the closed position.

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Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft returns to Earth, wrapping up critical test mission

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After spending a little less than a week at the space station, Boeing’s new passenger spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, returned to Earth this afternoon, landing intact with the help of parachutes and airbags in the New Mexico desert. The successful touchdown brings an end to a crucial test flight for Starliner, one that showcased the vehicle’s ability to launch to space, dock with the station, and then return home safely.

Shaped like a gumdrop, Boeing’s Starliner capsule was built in partnership with NASA in order to launch the agency’s astronauts to and from the International Space Station, or ISS. The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which challenged private companies with creating space taxis to carry people to low Earth orbit. But before NASA will let its personnel ride on the vehicle, the space agency wanted Starliner to demonstrate that it could go through all the motions of a trip to the ISS — without people on board.

With today’s landing, that uncrewed test flight — called OFT-2 — has come to an end, with Starliner performing every major step it was meant to accomplish. The capsule successfully launched to orbit on May 19th, riding to space on top of an Atlas V rocket; it approached and docked with the ISS on May 20th; and it undocked with the space station this afternoon before heading home. It wasn’t a completely smooth flight, though. Throughout the mission, Starliner encountered a number of issues with its various thrusters, tiny engines used to maneuver and propel the vehicle through space. None of those problems proved to be fatal for the flight, though, and Starliner was able to complete OFT-2 as planned.

It’s also been a bumpy road getting to this launch. The name of this test flight, OFT-2, actually stands for Orbital Flight Test-2. That’s because it’s a do-over of the same test flight that Boeing tried to perform back in 2019. In December of that year, Boeing launched Starliner without a crew on board, sending it to space on another Atlas V rocket. But a software glitch on Starliner caused the capsule to fire its thrusters incorrectly after it separated from the rocket, and ultimately, the spacecraft got into the wrong orbit. The issue prevented Starliner from reaching the space station, and Boeing was not able to show the spacecraft’s ability to dock with the ISS. Boeing had to bring the spacecraft home early and was able to land the capsule in White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico — the same location Starliner landed today.

Boeing attempted to try again to launch Starliner last summer, but just hours before takeoff, the company halted the countdown after finding that more than a dozen propellant valves were sticking and not opening properly. It took Boeing up until now to fix the issues, and the company says it’s possible that a redesign of the valves may happen in the future. But now, two and a half years after the original botched flight, Starliner has finally shown that it can launch and autonomously dock with the ISS — a key feature it will have to perform over and over again when people are on board.

Landing is also a critical task for Starliner in order to bring passengers home safely. To demonstrate those capabilities for this flight, the capsule undocked with the ISS at 2:36PM ET this afternoon, slowly flying around the station and then distancing itself from the orbiting lab. At 6:05PM ET, Starliner used its onboard thrusters to slow itself down and take itself out of orbit, putting it on course with Earth’s surface. Shortly after, the vehicle plunged through the planet’s atmosphere, experiencing temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Starliner then used a series of parachutes to slow its fall before landing in White Sands on top of airbags to help cushion the touchdown. It marked the second successful landing for Starliner, as Boeing already showcased the vehicle’s landing during its first botched test flight in 2019.

“That touchdown coming at 5:49pm Central Time, almost exactly six days into the mission,” NASA’s Brandi Dean, a NASA communications officer, said on a livestream of the landing. “Just a beautiful touchdown in White Sands this evening.”

There was some slight concern about this landing, however, as Starliner experienced multiple problems with its thrusters throughout the flight. When the capsule launched to space last week, two of the 12 thrusters Starliner uses to insert itself into the right orbit failed. Boeing said drops in chamber pressure caused the thrusters to cut off early. Ultimately, Starliner’s flight control system was able to redirect to a backup thruster in time, and the capsule got into orbit as planned. However, those same thrusters were needed to take Starliner out of orbit, but they seemed to work as planned despite the two failed thrusters.

There were other bugs throughout the flight, too. A couple of different smaller thrusters, used to maneuver Starliner during docking, also failed due to low chamber pressure. However, it didn’t prevent the capsule from attaching to the ISS. “We have a lot of redundancy that really didn’t affect the rendezvous operations at all,” Steve Stich, NASA’s program manager for the Commercial Crew Program, said during a press conference after docking. And, on top of all of that, the Boeing team noticed that some of Starliner’s thermal systems used to cool the spacecraft showed extra cold temperatures, and the engineering team had to manage that during the docking.

Starliner still accomplished many of its goals while docked with the ISS. Astronauts on board the ISS opened Starliner’s hatch this weekend, entered the vehicle, and retrieved cargo brought to the station. The capsule has brought about 600 pounds of cargo back to Earth, as well as Rosie the Rocketeer, a mannequin that rode along inside Starliner to simulate what it’ll be like when humans ride on board.

Now, with Starliner back on Earth, there’s plenty of work left to do. Over the coming months, NASA and Boeing will study the failures that occurred on this flight and determine if Starliner is ready to carry people to space during a test flight called CFT, for Crewed Flight Test, which could occur by the end of the year. That will be a huge milestone for Boeing, which has fallen far behind NASA’s other Commercial Crew provider, SpaceX. SpaceX has already flown five crewed flights to the station for NASA on its Crew Dragon capsule, which carried its first passengers in 2020.

But if Starliner is cleared to fly people, NASA will finally have what it always wanted: two different American companies capable of taking agency astronauts to orbit.

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Boeing lands Starliner capsule, completing a crucial test flight

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Boeing’s Starliner capsule lands in White Sands, New Mexico on May 25, 2022 to complete the OFT-2 mission.

NASA TV

Boeing landed its uncrewed Starliner spacecraft in the New Mexico desert on Wednesday, completing a crucial test flight as the company prepares to carry astronauts.

Starliner landed at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, after earlier in the day leaving the International Space Station – concluding the six-day Orbital Flight Test 2, or OFT-2 mission.

The mission completed one of its most important test objectives, reaching the ISS and docking successfully. OFT-2 marks a critical development milestone in Boeing’s development of Starliner, which has run into several obstacles and delays over the past three years.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen before docking with the International Space Station on May 20, 2022 during the uncrewed OFT-2 mission.

NASA

Boeing has been developing its Starliner spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew program, having won nearly $5 billion in contracts to build the capsule. The company competes under the program against Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which completed development of its Crew Dragon spacecraft and is now on its fourth operational human spaceflight for NASA.

The aerospace giant was once seen as evenly matched with SpaceX in the race to launch NASA astronauts. Yet the delays to Starliner’s development have steadily set Boeing back, both in schedule and finances. Due to the fixed-price nature of its NASA contract, Boeing absorbed the cost of additional work on the capsule and has spent $595 million so far.

Boeing’s next Starliner mission is expected to be the Crew Flight Test, or CFT, flying the first astronauts onboard the capsule. However, the company is examining whether to redesign the Aerojet Rocketdyne-made propulsion valves on Starliner, which malfunctioned during the company’s first attempt to launch the OFT-2 mission in August 2021.

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