Up to date 10:30 p.m. Jap with feedback from postlanding briefing.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner safely landed in New Mexico Could 25, concluding a six-day uncrewed take a look at flight to the Worldwide Area Station and setting the stage for the spacecraft’s first flight with individuals.
Starliner undocked from the Worldwide Area Station at 2:36 p.m. Jap and maneuvered away from the station. After a one-minute deorbit burn utilizing 4 Orbital Maneuvering and Angle Management (OMAC) thrusters at 6:05 p.m. Jap, the crew capsule jettisoned the service module and reentered the environment over the Pacific Ocean.
The capsule deployed two drogue chutes adopted by three major parachutes, jettisoning its warmth protect to disclose air luggage used to cushion the touchdown. The spacecraft touched down at 6:49 p.m. Jap at White Sands Area Harbor in New Mexico.
The touchdown, instantly deemed profitable by NASA and Boeing, wrapped up the Orbital Flight Take a look at (OFT) 2 mission nearly precisely six days after its liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft docked with the station a bit of greater than 24 hours after liftoff.
“It was a picture-perfect touchdown,” Steve Stich, NASA industrial crew program supervisor, stated at a postlanding briefing. “The methods carried out nice on the automobile, and as soon as we work by way of all the information, we’ll be able to fly the crew on this automobile.”
OFT-2 was a redo of the unique OFT mission in December 2019, which suffered issues instantly after launch that saved the spacecraft from reaching the ISS. Boeing tried to launch OFT-2 in August 2021 however issues with propellant valves within the spacecraft’s service module postponed the launch.
The corporate took almost $600 million in expenses to repair the issues from the unique OFT and subsequent first OFT-2 launch try earlier than it was capable of launch the spacecraft final week.
This mission was not with out issues. Two OMAC thrusters failed throughout an orbital insertion burn shortly after separation from the Atlas 5 higher stage, a difficulty Boeing and NASA proceed to research. Two response management system thrusters additionally malfunctioned however have been later recovered. In each instances, Boeing stated the automobile had enough redundancy to proceed the mission. The spacecraft additionally encountered issues with a thermal management loop early within the mission.
Stich stated controllers tried firing these two thrusters after undocking. “We noticed an attention-grabbing signature that appears a bit of bit just like the signatures we noticed at shutdown,” he stated. That might assist slim down the reason for the issue, he added.
Neither Stich nor Mark Nappi, Boeing’s industrial crew program supervisor, have been fearful in regards to the thruster issues. “None of them look to be severe, that they might flip into some type of design change,” Nappi stated. “I’m extra optimistic that we’ll have the ability to clarify these and transfer on.”
The following step in growth of Starliner is the automobile’s first crewed flight, the Crew Flight Take a look at (CFT) mission carrying at the very least two NASA astronauts. The Starliner spacecraft might be prepared for CFT as quickly as late this 12 months, though a launch date will depend upon what work must be accomplished in response to points discovered throughout OFT-2, in addition to the schedule of ISS actions. Nappi stated it will possible be “a number of months” earlier than they will set a date for the CFT mission.
“I don’t see any motive why we are able to’t proceed to the Crew Flight Take a look at subsequent,” Stich stated. “Now we have just a few issues to work on between from time to time however I don’t see any showstoppers this time.” He added the efficiency of Starliner on OFT-2 was “very related in plenty of methods” to the Demo-1 uncrewed flight take a look at of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in 2019 by way of the problems encountered.
“OFT-2 was a take a look at flight, and we anticipated to study from this factor, and we did,” Nappi stated. Regardless of the thruster and thermal cooling system anomalies, “the group and the automobile dealt with these extraordinarily properly, and it was a very good studying expertise.”
The valve downside that delayed OFT-2 from final August was not a difficulty on this flight, however Stich and Nappi stated they might look at whether or not to carry out the identical mitigations, reminiscent of purging the valves with nitrogen fuel to take away moisture, for CFT or take different measures that would embrace redesigning the valves. “Now we have choices for CFT. We nonetheless want to take a look at the longer-term answer,” Nappi stated. “I really feel assured that we are able to get an possibility in place to be used on CFT and have a look at longer-term options” for operational missions.
“On a scale of 1 to 10,” he stated when requested to charge the OFT-2 mission, “I believe I’d give it a 15. This was unbelievable.”
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