WASHINGTON — NASA and Boeing say they’re ready to make a second attempt to launch the company’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on an uncrewed test flight after an incident at the International Space Station called off the first attempt last week.

Starliner was scheduled to launch July 30, but a temporary loss of attitude control at the station July 29, caused by thruster firings of the Nauka module several hours after it docked with the station, led NASA to postpone the launch. “We want to ensure the space station is in a stable configuration and ready for Starliner to arrive,” Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said at a July 29 briefing.

The next opportunity to launch Starliner was Aug. 3, assuming the station was able by then to support a docking. NASA announced late July 30 that they were proceeding with a launch that day, in an instantaneous launch window at 1:20 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Weather forecasts project a 60% chance of acceptable weather for the launch.

A launch on Aug. 3 would set up Starliner for a docking attempt at 1:37 p.m. Eastern Aug. 4. Starliner would remain at the station until Aug. 9, undocking at 9:08 a.m. Eastern and landing at White Sands, New Mexico, about four hours later.

After the postponement of the first launch attempt, United Launch Alliance rolled the Atlas 5 rocket carrying Starliner back to its assembly building July 30 to protect the vehicle from the weather. The rocket is slated to roll back out to the pad Aug 2.

No other servicing of the spacecraft was planned before the next launch attempt. “Starliner and the Atlas are in a good configuration, and they can stay in the config they’re in for quite a number of [launch] opportunities,” Stich said.

While NASA confirmed plans for the next launch attempt, it’s said little about the incident with Nauka that caused the delay. There have been no other issues reported with the new module since its docking, and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov entered the module for the first time July 30.

Vladimir Solovyov, designer general of RSC Energia and flight director of the Russian segment of the ISS, said in a Roscosmos statement July 30 that the thruster firing was caused by a software problem. “Due to a short-term software failure, a direct command was mistakenly implemented to turn on the module’s engines for withdrawal, which led to some modification of the orientation of the complex as a whole,” he said.

Neither NASA nor Roscosmos have disclosed additional information about the problem and how they ensured it would not happen again. At the July 29 briefing, NASA officials played down the severity of the problem, which the agency originally said caused the station to drift 45 degrees out of its intended attitude.

“We have all sorts of contingency plans,” Joel Montalbano, NASA ISS program manager, said at the July 29 briefing. Station controllers “were seeing goodness come to us fairly quickly and we able to get us back to a stable attitude within the hour.”

However, the situation may have been more serious than what NASA originally claimed. Publicly available telemetry showed much greater excursions in roll, pitch and yaw during the hour it took to restore the station’s attitude.

“Reports of ISS only being 45 degrees out were premature,” Zebulon Scoville, a NASA ISS flight director, tweeted July 30. “We proceeded to do headstands and cartwheels. Olympic judges would be proud.”

Quelle: SN

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Launch Tuesday, August 3

• Rocket: United Launch Alliance Atlas V
• Mission: Boeing Starliner capsule's Orbital Flight Test-2
• Launch Time: 1:20 p.m. ET
• Launch Complex: 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
• Weather: 60% Go
• Backup launch window: Aug. 4

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Update: 5.08.2021

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Starliner glitch delays launch

WASHINGTON — A problem with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle scrubbed a launch attempt Aug. 3, pushing back its uncrewed test flight by several days.

Boeing announced about three hours before the scheduled 1:20 p.m. Eastern liftoff that the launch had been postponed for the day. In a statement a short time later, the company said engineers detected “unexpected valve position indications in the propulsion system” of the spacecraft.

The problem was originally noticed during checkouts of the spacecraft after lightning in the vicinity of the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station the day before. The spacecraft, atop its Atlas 5 rocket, rolled out to the pad early that day. The company didn’t elaborate on the issue or why they scrubbed the launch at that point in the countdown.

The company had not reported any other issues with the spacecraft during the countdown. Weather remained questionable, though, with a 50% chance of acceptable conditions at liftoff.

“We’re disappointed with today’s outcome and the need to reschedule our Starliner launch,” John Vollmer, Boeing vice president and program manager of its commercial crew program, said in a statement. “Boeing and NASA teams will take the time they need to ensure the safety and integrity of the spacecraft and the achievement of our mission objectives.”

Late Aug. 3, NASA and Boeing announced they would not attempt a launch on the next opportunity, Aug. 4. Boeing said engineers had ruled out a number of potential causes, including software, and need more time to investigate the problem. Crews will roll the rocket back to its vertical integration facility on Aug. 4 to support additional investigation.

After Aug. 4, the next launch opportunity, based on orbital mechanics, is Aug. 7, but NASA and Boeing did not state when they thought they would be ready to make the next launch attempt.

The launch was scheduled for July 30, but postponed when the ISS temporarily lost attitude controlwhen thrusters on the Nauka module fired several hours after the module docked with the station July 29.

Starliner will launch on a mission called Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2, a rerun of the original OFT mission launched in December 2019. That mission suffered serious software problems after reaching orbit, calling off a docking attempt with the ISS and forcing the spacecraft to land after just two days.

An independent review in early 2020 made 80 recommendations to correct software issues with Starliner as well as communications problems it experienced during the flight. NASA and Boeing confirmed in prelaunch reviews for OFT-2 that the company had closed out all the recommendations.

A successful OFT-2 mission would allow NASA and Boeing to proceed with a crewed flight test with three NASA astronauts on board as soon as the end of this year, although industry sources believe a launch in the first half of 2022 is more likely. It would leave Boeing at least a year and a half behind SpaceX, which first launched astronauts on its Crew Dragon spacecraft in May 2020 and is currently in the middle of its second operational mission to the station.

“It’s extremely important to us that we’re successful on this flight. With all that we’ve done over the past 18 months, we are very confident that we are going to have a good flight,” Vollmer said at a July 22 briefing about the upcoming OFT-2 mission. “It is of paramount importance that we have a successful flight.”

Quelle: SN

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Update: 7.08.2021

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Boeing's Starliner rolled back inside so engineers can assess valve problem

Boeing’s Starliner was supposed to finally have its moment to shine Tuesday after technical problems, COVID-related delays and even an unusual incident at the space station all prevented it from launching over the past 18 months.

Instead, the capsule stood under stormy skies until it was towed from the launchpad back to the Vertical Integration Facility on Thursday so engineers can inspect the valve issue that prevented launch.

John Vollmer, VP of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program said that he was disappointed, a sentiment shared by many.

“Human spaceflight is a complex, precise and unforgiving endeavor, and Boeing and NASA teams will take the time they need to ensure the safety and integrity of the spacecraft and the achievement of our mission objectives," he said in a statement.

Boeing has been under enormous pressure to show its spacecraft — designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station — is reliable after software issues hampered its first orbital flight test in Dec. 2019. But Starliner will have to wait a little longer to prove it is safe to fly NASA astronauts to the space station.

On Monday, after thunderstorms passed through the area, Boeing engineers re-tested some systems which is standard protocol when lightning strikes near the launch complex. That's when the team detected Starliner's propulsion system valves were malfunctioning. 

Because it is common to work issues during a countdown, the teams commenced with fueling on Tuesday but ultimately halted the launch because some of the propulsion system valves were still not operating correctly. 

Boeing teams have already run several tests and ruled out a number of potential causes, including software. Boeing said the storms appears to be an unlikely cause, but they will inspect for water or electrical damage while the spacecraft is in the VIF.

To make matters worse, now Boeing is under a time crunch due to scheduling conflicts at the space station and at the launch site. 

If teams can determine the cause of the issue and resolve it quickly, there’s still a slim chance it could launch on Saturday or Sunday. 

But if it’s a bigger problem or engineers can't access the components in the VIF, then the spacecraft will need to be removed from atop its Atlas V booster and returned to Boeing’s facility at Kennedy Space Center. That could delay the launch a couple weeks or even months. 

For starters, SpaceX is slated to launch its next cargo resupply mission the space station on Aug. 29 and it needs an open docking port so Starliner would have to launch to the station and depart before then or wait until after SpaceX is slated to leave the station on Sept. 29.

But then things get busy for United Launch Alliance, which is set to launch NASA’s asteroid mission in early October and needs time to prepare and stack the Atlas V rocket.

Regardless of the time pressure, Boeing says it will not launch until the team is ready.

“We’re going to let the data lead our work,”  Vollmer said. “Our team has worked diligently to ensure the safety and success of this mission, and we will not launch until our vehicle is performing nominally and our teams are confident it is ready to fly.”

Quelle: Florida Today

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Update: 10.08.2021

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Starliner investigation continues

 

WASHINGTON — Boeing is continuing its investigation into the thruster issue that delayed the launch of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle but could soon run into schedule conflicts on both the International Space Station and with its launch vehicle.

In an Aug. 6 statement, Boeing said it was continuing to study why several valves in the propulsion system of the spacecraft were unexpectedly in the closed position during the countdown to the Aug. 3 launch attempt of the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission, an uncrewed test flight. Boeing scrubbed the launch about three hours before the scheduled liftoff because of the problem.

The Starliner, atop its Atlas 5 rocket, is back in the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, allowing engineers access to the spacecraft. They were able to open some valves by issuing a new set of commands.

“Cautiously optimistic is a good way to describe how the team is feeling,” John Vollmer, Boeing vice president and commercial crew program manager, said in a statement.

What caused the valves to malfunction isn’t clear, although Boeing said in an earlier statement that they had ruled out software problems. One possibility is damage such as water intrusion during a severe thunderstorm shortly after the rocket was rolled out to the pad Aug. 2.

Neither NASA nor Boeing have set a new launch date for the OFT-2 mission. Boeing said in its statement that it is “assessing multiple launch opportunities for Starliner in August” and will work with NASA and United Launch Alliance to determine an appropriate launch date.

NASA, in its own statement Aug. 6, said it and Boeing “will continue to evaluate schedules based on where the troubleshooting efforts take them before deciding when the next official launch for the OFT-2 mission will take place.”

A combination of factors could force an extended delay if the OFT-2 mission does not launch by late August. A Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch the CRS-23 cargo mission to the ISS Aug. 28. It will use the same docking port as Starliner will for OFT-2, meaning that if OFT-2 does not complete its mission by late August, NASA will either have to postpone CRS-23 or wait until that mission is done, likely no earlier than late September.

By that point, however, ULA will need to focus on preparations for its next Atlas 5 launch, NASA’s Lucy asteroid mission. That mission has a three-week launch window that opens in mid-October. The Atlas 5 for OFT-2 would have to be “de-stacked” and the one for Lucy assembled in the VIF, with the spacecraft then installed and tested. Given the narrow window for Lucy, additional testing of the vehicle is likely to find any problems well ahead of the opening of the launch window.

An additional complication is that this will be taking place during the height of the tropical weather season, with the potential for tropical storms and hurricanes delaying launches or launch preparations by days.

If OFT-2 does not launch by the time its Atlas 5 needs to be de-stacked to prepare for the Lucy mission, the next opportunity may not be until November, after the SpaceX Crew Dragon Crew-3 mission launches at the end of October and the Crew-2 mission returns home, freeing up a docking port for Starliner.

Quelle: SN

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Update: 14.08.2021

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NASA, Boeing to Provide Update on Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test-2

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is seen on the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of the Orbital Flight Test-2 mission, Monday, Aug. 2, 2021 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Credits: NASA/Joel Kowsky

 

Editor's Note: This advisory was updated Aug. 12 to update the list of briefing participants.

NASA and Boeing are continuing discussions on the status of the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission, and will host a joint media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT, Friday, Aug. 13, to discuss the second uncrewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station, as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

 

Participants in the briefing will be:

 

• Kathryn Lueders, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations
• Joel Montalbano, manager or NASA’s International Space Station Program
• Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
• John Vollmer, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program

 

Audio of the teleconference will livestream online at: 

 

https://www.nasa.gov/live

 

To participate in the teleconference, media must contact the newsroom at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov by 12 p.m. for the dial-in information.

 

The OFT-2 mission will launch Starliner on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. After launch, Starliner will dock to the space station before returning to Earth in the western United States as part of an end-to-end test flight to prove the system is ready to fly with crew aboard.

Quelle: NASA

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Update: 15.08.2021

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Boeing Starliner headed back to the factory to find cause of valve problem

The second attempt of Starliner’s orbital flight test will not happen this month and possibly not this year.

Boeing's Starliner, designed to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, was set to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on August 4 but issues with the propulsion system valves halted the countdown.

Boeing says teams have worked “around the clock” to fix nine of the 13 broken oxidizer valves but four of them remain stuck in the closed position.

“I’m a little sad because I really wanted to go fly,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations. “But these are the kind of things you want to find on the ground.”

The failed valves were on thrusters that control both orbital maneuvering as well as controlling the spacecraft during rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station.

“We would not have launched unless we had all the valves open,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s manager of the Commercial Crew program. “We stopped the launch because we knew we wouldn’t have had propellent flow to those orbital-maneuvering and attitude-control engines and also the reaction-control system engines.”

After more than a week of trying to fix the valve problems plaguing the Starliner spacecraft, Boeing still hasn’t discovered what caused the issue in the first place.

John Vollmer, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program, explained that these valves were used during the pad abort test and during the first orbital flight test attempt without any incident.

“We really had no reason to suspect any issues with the valves,” Vollmer said.

But Vollmer said the most probably cause is corrosion due to moisture.

Boeing teams working on the propulsion system valve problem that halted the second attempt of the Starliner's orbital flight test.  

BOEING

“There was moisture on the quote dry side of the valve and that interaction, we believe, created some nitric acid and that nitric acid resulted into some corrosion,” he explained.

 

After the spacecraft rolled out to the launchpad Aug. 2, it sat out overnight during a thunderstorm. Vollmer said the storm was severe enough to disrupt the covers that protect the thrusters but says the rain was not a direct cause.

“The moisture we saw on the valve is atmospheric moisture. It is not intrusion moisture," he said. 

At this point, the spacecraft will need to be removed from the Atlas V rocket and taken back to Boeing’s manufacturing facility at Kennedy Space Center for further work.

“We’ve got to go back and look and see if there was some ambient moisture that was retained in there during the assembly of these valves or was there something that caused a leak of moisture to get in there?” Vollmer said.

One thing is clear, Starliner won’t be launching in August and finding a window in the busy launch schedule for the rest of the year will be difficult.

“It's probably too early to say whether it’s this year or not. We certainly hope for as early as possible. If we could fly this year it would be fantastic,” Vollmer said.

Boeing has been under enormous pressure to show its spacecraft is reliable after software issues hampered its first orbital flight test in Dec. 2019. 

NASA selected two providers, SpaceX and Boeing, to be launch providers capable of carrying astronauts to the space station to encourage competition and to end America's reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. 

SpaceX has already sent three crewed missions to the ISS since Boeings failed uncrewed test flight.

“I know this is very, very hard on our NASA Boeing team," Lueders said. "We are committed to continue to work with Boeing on bringing on their crew transportation."

Quelle: Florida Today

+++

Russian specialists ready to help US Starliner project — Roscosmos

NASA’s ISS program manager Joel Montalbano said the Starliner launch will not take place before mid-October

The director general of Russia’s Roscosmos state-run space corporation, Dmitry Rogozin, said Russian specialists were ready to assist their US colleagues in solving problems of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.

"Since it is a matter of the ISS [International Space Station] maintenance, we reaffirm our readiness to provide expert support to our US colleagues," Rogozin wrote in his Telegram channel.

In his words, the M.V. Keldysh Research Center - an affiliate of Roscosmos and the Russian space industry's leading rocket engine designer and manufacturer - was ready to send a team of its scientists to the United States.

On July 29, NASA said it had postponed Starliner's launch to the ISS, originally due on July 30. The delay was then attributed to the unexpected activation of the science module Nauka's engines following its docking with the ISS. Starliner's launch was postponed till August 3, but several hours before the expected blastoff Boeing said that it was considering a further delay till August 4. Eventually the company said that Starliner's launch that was scheduled for Wednesday, August 4, had to be postponed indefinitely due to the need for re-checking its readiness.

A source in the space rocket industry told TASS on Tuesday that Starliner's flight to the ISS had to be postponed due to problems with the capsule's propulsion system valves. The source said it was unclear when the spacecraft might be brought to the launch pad again.

Meanwhile, NASA’s ISS program manager Joel Montalbano said on Friday, the Starliner launch will not take place before mid-October.

Quelle: TASS

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Update: 22.08.2021

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Boeing Starliner back at factory to diagnose and fix the propulsion system valves

 

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft returned to its factory at Kennedy Space Center this week but it wasn't the homecoming anybody hoped for.

Starliner, designed to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, was set to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Aug. 3 for its second orbital flight test but problems with the propulsion system valves halted the countdown.

Engineers discovered that 13 oxidizer valves were stuck in the closed position.  The failed valves were on thrusters that control both orbital maneuvering as well as controlling the spacecraft during rendezvous and docking with the space station.

Over the next few days, the Boeing team was able to get nine of the valves to open but four of them remain stuck in the closed position.

John Vollmer, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program, said that a moisture issue is most likely the cause of the problem

“The moisture we saw on the valve is atmospheric moisture. It is not intrusion moisture," said on a call with reporters. 

Now that Starliner is back at Boeing's factory, the team will resume deeper level troubleshooting. 

“We’ve got to go back and look and see if there was some ambient moisture that was retained in there during the assembly of these valves or was there something that caused a leak of moisture to get in there?” Vollmer said.

Boeing is working with their partners at Aerojet Rocketdyne, the company that manufactures the propulsion system, to solve the problem. 

The second attempt of Starliner’s orbital flight test will not happen this month and Vollmer said it's too soon to project when or if it will launch this year.

Boeing has been under enormous pressure to show its spacecraft is reliable after software issues hampered its first orbital flight test in Dec. 2019. 

NASA selected two providers, SpaceX and Boeing, to be launch providers capable of carrying astronauts to the space station to encourage competition and to end America's reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. 

SpaceX is getting ready to send its fourth crewed mission to the space station on Oct. 31 carrying NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer.

Quelle: Florida Today

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Update: 23.09.2021

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BOEING’S STARLINER MAY NOT FLY UNTIL 2022

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on top of its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, August 2, 2021.

Boeing later explained that 13 of the 64 valves in Starliner’s propulsion system failed to open. Boeing is still trying to figure out why. They had worked perfectly during a test 5 weeks earlier.

SpacePolicyOnline.com asked Boeing for an update last week, six weeks after the scrub, and was told the root cause still was not determined.

The team continues to work several troubleshooting efforts in parallel to resolve the oxidizer isolation valve issue that delayed Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test-2 mission. Testing is taking place both on the vehicle and in offline labs. Progress is being made to eliminate potential causes through a detailed fault tree analysis. Upcoming OFT-2 launch opportunities will be evaluated by Boeing, NASA and United Launch Alliance once our root cause analysis and corrective action plan help us define the appropriate path back to the launch pad. — Boeing spokesperson, Sept, 15, 2021

Today, Kathy Lueders, who as of today is NASA’s Associate Administrator for Space Operations, said the launch may not take place until 2022.

The valves are in the Starliner’s service module and will have to be removed. They are looking at whether they should replace the service module with another one and will make a decision “over the next few weeks.”

I think right now the timeline and the manifest through the end of the year is pretty tight right now, so my gut is it would probably more likely be next year, but we’re working through that timeline. I don’t think we’re ready to formally address when exactly the OFT-2 mission is, but I think the team is making great progress on further troubleshooting and I absolutely know we’re going to fix this problem before we fly. — Kathy Lueders

Lueders headed NASA’s commercial crew program until last summer when she was promoted to run the agency’s entire human spaceflight program as Associate Administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD).

Today, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson split HEOMD into two — the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD) and the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD).  Lueders is now AA for SOMD and Jim Free was appointed to lead ESDMD.  The commercial crew program remains within her portfolio. Her Starliner comments today were made during a teleconference about the reorganization.

Quelle: SPACEPOLICYONLINE.COM

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Update: 10.10.2021

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NASA, Boeing Update Starliner Orbital Flight Test-2 Status

Editor’s note: This blog was updated Oct. 8 to reflect that the team is working toward launch opportunities in the first half of 2022 for Orbital Flight Test-2.

The NASA, Boeing team continues to make progress on the investigation of the oxidizer isolation valve issue on the Starliner service module propulsion system that was discovered ahead of the planned uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission to the International Space Station in August.

“I am proud of the work our integrated teams are doing,” said Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew Program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “This is a complex issue involving hazardous commodities and intricate areas of the spacecraft that are not easily accessed. It has taken a methodical approach and sound engineering to effectively examine.”

Boeing has demonstrated success in valve functionality using localized heating and electrical charging techniques. Troubleshooting on the pad, at the launch complex, and inside the Starliner production factory at Kennedy Space Center has resulted in movement of all but one of the original stuck valves. That valve has not been moved intentionally to preserve forensics for direct root cause analysis.

Most items on the fault tree have been dispositioned by the team including causes related to avionics, flight software and wiring. Boeing has identified a most probable cause related to oxidizer and moisture interactions, and although some verification work remains underway, our confidence is high enough that we are commencing corrective and preventive actions. Additional spacecraft and component testing will be conducted in the coming weeks to further explore contributing factors and necessary system remediation before flight.

Boeing completed a partial disassembly of three of the affected Orbital Maneuvering and Attitude Control (OMAC) thruster valves last month and plans to remove three valves from the OFT-2 spacecraft in the coming weeks for further inspection. The team also is evaluating additional testing to repeat the initial valve failures.

Boeing has identified several paths forward depending on the outcome of the testing to ultimately resolve the issue and prevent it from happening on future flights. These options could range from minor refurbishment of the current service module components to using another service module already in production. Each option is dependent on data points the team expects to collect in the coming weeks including a timeline for safely proceeding back to the launch pad.

“Safety of the Starliner spacecraft, our employees, and our crew members is this team’s number one priority,” said John Vollmer, vice president and program manager, Boeing’s Starliner program. “We are taking the appropriate amount of time to work through the process now to set this system up for success on OFT-2 and all future Starliner missions.”

Potential launch windows for OFT-2 continue to be assessed by NASA, Boeing, United Launch Alliance, and the Eastern Range. The team currently is working toward opportunities in the first half of 2022 pending hardware readiness, the rocket manifest, and space station availability.

Quelle: NASA

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Update: 17.10.2021

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NASA, Boeing to Provide Update on Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket as it is rolled out of the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Credits: NASA

 

NASA and Boeing will hold a joint teleconference at 2:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Oct. 19, to update media on the company’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Teams will discuss work on the oxidizer isolation valve issue that was discovered ahead of the planned uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission to the International Space Station in August.

 

Participants in the briefing will be:

 

• Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
• John Vollmer, vice president and program manager, Boeing Commercial Crew Program
• Michelle Parker, chief engineer, Boeing Space and Launch

 

Audio of the teleconference will stream live onli

Raumfahrt - Startvorbereitung für Testflug von OFT2 Boeing Starliner -Update-3

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