Boeing's Starliner pill comes down through Earth's environment on Sept. 7, 2024, heading for the goal that ended its Crew Flight Test objective. (Image credit: NASA)
Boeing's Starliner pill simply went back to Earth without astronauts, marking the start of a brand-new set of examinations by NASA.
Starliner left the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday night (Sept. 6), then aced a landing in New Mexico simply after midnight on Saturday (Sept. 7). The goal brought an end to Crew Flight Test (CFT), Starliner's first-ever astronaut objective. No astronauts came down with the pill on Saturday; Starliner experienced issues with its response control system (RCS) thrusters quickly after CFT's June 5 liftoff, and NASA chose not to run the risk of putting Williams and Wilmore aboard the pill once again.
The duo have a strong homecoming strategy: They'll ride back to Earth in February 2025 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon pill– the one that will fly the business's Crew-9 objective, which is set to release towards the ISS on Sept. 24. What's next for the Starliner program is a larger concern.
NASA entrusted SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 with sending out astronauts to and from the ISS. SpaceX, obtaining understanding from its Cargo Dragon spacecraft, flew a Crew Dragon test objective to the station in 2019 without astronauts and passed all metrics, permitting the business to release its launching astronaut test flight the list below year. That effort succeeded, and SpaceX rapidly transferred to functional, long-duration astronaut objectives to the ISS for NASA. It's in the middle of its 8th such flight and is preparing for the ninth (Crew-9).
Related: NASA astronauts can't use Boeing Starliner spacesuits in SpaceX's Dragon. Here's why
Starliner, a brand-new style, has actually needed several modifications. Its very first objective, an uncrewed test flight in December 2019, stopped working to reach the ISS due to software application problems. The pill was successful on its 2nd ISS attempt in May 2022 however experienced a couple of concerns with its propulsion system throughout that flight.
CFT has actually had missteps too– specifically, helium leakages and the thruster concerns. (Five of Starliner's 28 RCS thrusters stopped working as it chased after the ISS down soon after launch.) The objective was expected to last simply 10 days approximately, however NASA kept Starliner at the ISS for 3 months as it evaluated the thruster issues and what to do about them.
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Those problems seem connected to overheating– an outcome, possibly, both of the frequency of thruster usage and their positioning inside heat-retaining shelters on the exterior of the spacecraft referred to as “dog houses.” Bulging seals and insulation shedding appear to limit the circulation of propellant to the RCS thrusters.
NASA and Boeing had actually hoped that CFT would lead the way for Starliner's very first functional crewed flight. That objective, called Starliner-1, is tentatively targeted for August 2025.
