Trevor Mahlmann
Today is the day that Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft takes to the skies. Unless it isn’t.
Nearly 29 months have passed since the company’s first attempt to demonstrate that Starliner can be safely launched into Earth orbit, fly to the International Space Station and dock, then return to Earth in a desert of New Mexico under three parachutes. During that December 2019 test flight, there were of course numerous software problems, and Starliner eventually ran out of fuel to meet the space station.
As part of its fixed-price contract with NASA — the space agency will pay Boeing about $5.1 billion to develop a crew transportation system to the space station — the company agreed to rerun the demonstration flight. Boeing thought it was ready for this repeat flight last August, but hours before launch, more than a dozen valves got stuck in Starliner’s propulsion system. The attempt was called off, so Boeing was never able to test the revised software code.
Since August, Boeing and NASA have been working to understand the valve problem, which turned out to be due to the humidity in the environment causing corrosion in the valves. Engineers then implemented fixes. Because of this additional delay, Boeing suffered a $600 million loss to fly this second demonstration mission, known as Orbital Flight Test-2.
Today’s launch is scheduled for 6:54 p.m. ET (22:54 UTC) atop an Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Coverage of the launch begins at 6 p.m. ET on NASA Television. The weather looks generally favorable, with a 70 percent chance of “go” conditions during the immediate launch window.
During launch, the Atlas V rocket with two solid rocket boosters will lift Starliner to an altitude of 181 km, after which the spacecraft will launch itself into orbit. This will be the 93rd overall launch of the rocket, which is built by United Launch Alliance and has an excellent track record of reliability.
The stakes are high for both Boeing and NASA. Chances are, Boeing has lost money on Starliner development over the past decade. Recently, former deputy NASA administrator Lori Garver said she believed the company probably wouldn’t run the program if given the chance to do it all over again. The sooner Boeing can get Starliner into operational status, the better it will be financially, as it can both serve NASA and attract additional customers in the private market.
The space agency, meanwhile, would very much like a second way to reach the space station. It is confident in the capacity of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle — for which NASA paid $3.1 billion and has been flying astronauts safely since mid-2020 — but with uncertainty in Russia, the space agency can no longer count on access to the Soyuz vehicle.
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Zoomed in photo of Starliner’s service module from the previous launch attempt in August 2021. Note the open inlets/outlets in the propulsion system.
Trevor Mahlmann
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Photo taken Wednesday of the same service module structure, indicating work has been done to seal off access to moisture in Starliner’s propulsion system.
Trevor Mahlmann
One of NASA’s astronauts who will fly on an early Starliner mission, Butch Wilmore, said during a news conference Wednesday that Boeing and the space agency were confident ahead of Thursday’s launch attempt. “This spacecraft is ready,” he said. “The teams are ready. Boeing is ready. ULA is ready. The mission people who will pilot the spacecraft in space are ready. And we are excited.”
If all goes well with the launch, the unmanned Starliner spacecraft will dock at the space station on Friday at 7:10 p.m. ET (23:10 UTC). This allows Starliner and its heavily revised software to pass an important test for NASA. After being tethered to the station for several days, Starliner will fly back to Earth next week. Success with the overall mission would likely lead to a manned launch test for Starliner in the first half of 2023.
