Photo: NASA
American aerospace giant Boeing has had a pretty rough patch these past few years in all aspects of its business. When it comes to airplanes, the 737 MAX debacle, which led this week to the firing of the program's chief Ed Clark, has caused incredible damage to the company. When it comes to Boeing's space exploits, the same happened because of the Starliner.
The spacecraft was devised at about the same time as the Space Crew Dragon and was meant to aid America in ridding itself of its reliance on Russian Soyuz rockets and spaceships for getting its astronauts to space. But whereas the Crew Dragon completed its test flights with flying colors, Starliner failed on more than one occasion.
It first flew in 2019, managing to reach space and giving Boeing's higher-ups a lot of reasons for hope. But then a problem with the spaceship's mission clock (more precisely an 11-hour offset), caused it to eat up more fuel than it needed to and was left without enough of it to complete the mission and dock with the International Space Station (ISS).
The spacecraft did manage to come back safely, performing a kind of landing we're not used to from human-rated vehicles such as these: it used airbags to perform a soft touchdown at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
The failure of the uncrewed mission prompted Boeing to devise a second uncrewed flight, but this one didn't even manage to get off the launch pad, as a number of software issues caused enough delays for the program to be postponed indefinitely.
So, we have a spacecraft that reached orbit but failed to complete its mission and then failed to lift off the pad altogether in a second uncrewed test Boeing itself called for. And here we are now, in 2024, getting ready for the first crewed flight of the ship, and somewhat feeling we kind of missed a step.
The Boeing Crew Flight Test was tentatively scheduled to lift off in late summer, but everybody at NASA and Boeing seems pleased enough that everything is ok for an attempt to be made in mid-April.
The spacecraft will be occupied by astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, and it will be placed on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. It will take off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and once in orbit it will attempt to dock with the ISS, where it will stay for a period of two weeks. A return is planned to take place in the western United States.
If all goes according to plan, the Starliner will be certified for missions to the ISS, becoming the second American-made spacecraft to allow crew to reach the orbital laboratory.
It first flew in 2019, managing to reach space and giving Boeing's higher-ups a lot of reasons for hope. But then a problem with the spaceship's mission clock (more precisely an 11-hour offset), caused it to eat up more fuel than it needed to and was left without enough of it to complete the mission and dock with the International Space Station (ISS).
The spacecraft did manage to come back safely, performing a kind of landing we're not used to from human-rated vehicles such as these: it used airbags to perform a soft touchdown at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
The failure of the uncrewed mission prompted Boeing to devise a second uncrewed flight, but this one didn't even manage to get off the launch pad, as a number of software issues caused enough delays for the program to be postponed indefinitely.
So, we have a spacecraft that reached orbit but failed to complete its mission and then failed to lift off the pad altogether in a second uncrewed test Boeing itself called for. And here we are now, in 2024, getting ready for the first crewed flight of the ship, and somewhat feeling we kind of missed a step.
The Boeing Crew Flight Test was tentatively scheduled to lift off in late summer, but everybody at NASA and Boeing seems pleased enough that everything is ok for an attempt to be made in mid-April.
The spacecraft will be occupied by astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, and it will be placed on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. It will take off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and once in orbit it will attempt to dock with the ISS, where it will stay for a period of two weeks. A return is planned to take place in the western United States.
If all goes according to plan, the Starliner will be certified for missions to the ISS, becoming the second American-made spacecraft to allow crew to reach the orbital laboratory.
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