The first manned flight of the Boeing Starliner to the International Space Station was scheduled to last just eight days.
Starliner launched from Kennedy Space Center on June 5th with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, and docked with the ISS after a helium leak and thruster trouble. Nearly a month and a half later, Wilmore and Williams are still on board the ISS, doing useful work, butReturn date undecidedAt this point.
According to official NASA and Boeing statements, Starliner is being stored on the ISS so that engineers can study any malfunctions that occur during the spacecraft’s flight to the orbital lab. When Starliner returns, the service module containing the malfunctioning equipment will be detached and burn up in the atmosphere, making it unavailable for research.
Wilmore and Williams could stay for a few more weeks if necessary. Supplies are plentiful on the space station, and both astronauts have useful work to do. NASA has assured everyone that the Starliner astronauts can always return to Earth if necessary. But a thruster failure during re-entry could lead to a catastrophe, no matter how unlikely.
What if the Starliner is compromised and cannot be used to get Wilmore and Williams home safely?
One ideaSpaceX will launch Crew Dragon as a last resort to rescue them. Boeing said its biggest space rival isCommercial Crew ProgramHe rescued the company from problems with the spacecraft it had spent so much time and money developing.
The problem with the Crew Dragon rescue mission is that the Falcon 9’s second stage failed during a recent flight. The Federal Aviation AdministrationIt kept the Falcon 9 on the ground.While the investigation is ongoing, the incident has had a significant impact on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch plans.requestPublic safety decisions to allow for an early resumption of flights.
If NASA is right, at some point NASA and Boeing will finish investigating the Starliner’s problems and decide it’s safe to send astronauts home. Then what?
Starliner is obviouslyProblem-proneStarliner is a clunky spacecraft that needs a complete makeover before it can once again ferry astronauts to low-Earth orbit — a process that will take time and money.
Is it worth trying to fix the Starliner, or should Boeing and NASA just cut their losses?
While the Starliner problems should have been discovered and fixed long before humans flew aboard, they suggest Boeing has seen better days as an aerospace company capable of building flight-ready hardware.problemSystemic quality control issues have been identified in some of the company’s aircraft, but the problems have not been resolved.
Can Boeing afford to spend time and resources to fix the Starliner?
The original principle of the Commercial Crew Program — that there must be at least two ways to deliver astronauts to low Earth orbit — still stands, and the problems with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 second stage, while likely temporary, drive the point home.
The only way to fix Starliner is to develop another vehicle capable of carrying people into space besides Crew Dragon. Sierra SpaceDream seekerThat’s one possibility, but the first launch of a cargo version of that spacecraft wouldn’t be until late 2024 or early 2025. A crewed version would be even further off.
IndianGaganyaanAnother possibility is a spacecraft, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), whose first test flight with a crew is expected some time in the future.2025.
Neither a manned version of Dream Chaser nor Gaganyan would solve NASA’s immediate problems, and it’s unlikely anyone would want to offer Russia another Soyuz flight — a choice that’s undesirable, given Russia’s bloody war of aggression in Ukraine and its general hostile attitude toward the West.
NASA is faced with some risky, flawed decisions regarding access to low Earth orbit. Solving this conundrum will require a lot of skill and some luck.
Mark R. Whittington:Why is it so hard to get back to the Moon?“Similarly”The Moon, Mars and Beyond” and more recently “Why is America returning to the Moon?He runs a blogThe mean guy’s corner.
