(Image credit: NASA)
NASA and Boeing will try to bring an empty Starliner spacecraft back to Earth tonight (Sept. 6), weeks after the craft was considered too dangerous for astronauts to ride home.
The uncrewed Starliner is arranged to separate from the International Space Station (ISS) at 6:04 p.m. EDT (2204 GMT) today for a six-hour journey that must conclude at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico simply after midnight EDT.
NASA will livestream the undocking stage starting at 5:45 p.m. EDT (2145 GMT) and Starliner’s landing beginning at 10:50 p.m. EDT (0250 GMT on Sept. 7). You can view the livestreams on NASA’s site or by means of the video ingrained listed below.
NASAâ $ s Boeing Crew Flight Test Undocking – YouTube
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The landing will conclude NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test– the very first effort to bring astronauts into area on the Starliner pill. The test flight will end without the team that at first rode the car into orbit.
Starliner took off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5, bring NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams with it. The spacecraft experienced a number of unforeseen concerns along the method, consisting of numerous helium leakages and thruster breakdowns, before securely docking with the ISS on June 6.
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Wilmore and Williams were at first anticipated to remain aboard the ISS for as couple of as 8 days before riding Starliner back home, however tries to fix the spacecraft’s problems dragged out for months. On Aug. 24, NASA revealed in a news conference that it would bring Starliner home without its team, leaving Williams and Wilmore to rather fly home on a SpaceX pill no earlier than February 2025. The astronauts’ scheduled eight-day journey to area will now last a minimum of 240 days.
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NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Re-entry and Landing – YouTube
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“There was simply excessive unpredictability in the forecast of the thrusters,” Steve Stich, the program supervisor for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, stated at the Aug. 24 press conference. “If we had a method to precisely forecast what the thrusters would do … I believe we would have taken a various strategy.”
While concerns stay about the performance of Starliner’s thrusters, NASA will continue with undocking and deorbiting the spacecraft as prepared. After separating from the ISS, Starliner will carry out a series of engine burns to place it properly, before trying to reenter Earth’s environment. When authorized for reentry, Starliner will carry out a deorbit burn, enduring approximately 60 seconds, to slow the spacecraft enough for it to drop through Earth’s environment and guide it towards the landing target.
En route down, Starliner will reject its service module and heat guards, enabling the spacecraft to release parachutes and inflatable landing bags.