Boeing's 1st astronaut flight to space delayed until July
Boeing's first launch of astronauts has been delayed again, this time until July
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Boeing’s first launch of astronauts has been delayed again, this time until July.
NASA announced the latest postponement Wednesday, saying more time is needed to certify and test the Starliner capsule's parachute system before the spacecraft blasts off with two test pilots. Additional software testing is also underway.
Boeing already was running years behind schedule when it had to repeat its test flight without a crew to the International Space Station because of software and other problems. The first was in 2019 and the second in 2022.
“We know that what we’re doing is extremely important, launching humans in space," Boeing's Mark Nappi told reporters. "So we’ll take our time and we'll make sure that everybody is confident with the work that’s been done.”
Liftoff is currently targeted for no earlier than July 21 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Starliner capsule will ride atop United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket.
NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX a decade ago to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. SpaceX launched its seventh NASA crew earlier this month.
Quelle: abcNews
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NASA, Boeing Prepare for Starliner Flight This Summer
NASA and Boeing now are targeting no earlier than Friday, July 21, for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) to the International Space Station, pending coordination for the U.S Eastern Range availability.
The new target date provides NASA and Boeing the necessary time to complete subsystem verification testing and close out test flight certification products and aligns with the space station manifest and range launch opportunities.
The goal of CFT is to test the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system with crew onboard, including the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, from prelaunch to docking and undocking to landing and recovery. Following a successful test flight, Boeing will work to finalize operational readiness for its post-certification missions and NASA will begin the final process of certifying the Starliner spacecraft and systems for regular, crewed missions to the space station.
Certification Process Approximately 90% of the certification products required for the flight test are complete. NASA and Boeing anticipate closure on remaining CFT certification products this spring after ongoing verification testing of several subsystems is complete, including testing on the spacecraft’s backup manual flight mode for added redundancy in cases of emergency.
Starliner Status The Starliner spacecraft build is complete. The team is now working through final interior closeouts of the spacecraft and wrapping up integrated testing. The loading of cargo apart from some late-stow items also is complete. The next major hardware milestones are specific to the launch campaign timeline, such as spacecraft fueling and rolling out to the launch site.
Atlas V Status NASA completed its rocket readiness assessment, which evaluates all CFT launch vehicle segment flight critical items prior to integration activities. All rocket hardware is at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, awaiting processing ahead of rocket stacking at the launch site.
Crew Readiness The NASA astronauts who will fly on CFT recently completed the critical Crew Equipment Interface Test. Conducted in two parts during February and March, the test allowed astronauts to perform hands-on training with the tools, equipment and hardware they will use on orbit. In the first part, they worked with the Starliner team to perform in-cabin checkouts, including adjusting the spacecraft seats, inspecting spacecraft interfaces, examining cargo, and conducting floor panel and side hatch operations. The second part of the test included the astronauts maneuvering inside the cabin with cargo installed in the spacecraft.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 27.05.2023
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NASA safety panel skeptical of Starliner readiness for crewed flight
WASHINGTON — The chair of a NASA safety panel urged the agency not to rush into a crewed test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner vehicle, calling for an independent “deep look” at technical issues with the spacecraft.
Speaking at a May 25 public meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, Patricia Sanders, chair of the committee, expressed skepticism that NASA and Boeing will be able to close known issues with Starliner in time for a launch currently scheduled for as soon as July 21.
“There remains a long line of NASA processes still ahead to determine launch readiness” for the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, the first crewed flight of the spacecraft with two NASA astronauts on board. “That should not be flown until safety risks can either be mitigated or accepted, eyes wide open, with an appropriately compelling technical rationale.”
She noted the projected launch date, but added it was simply an “opportunity in the launch schedule” and manifest of planned missions to the station. The current launch date for CFT would fit between a cargo Dragon mission, slated to depart the ISS in early July, and the Crew-7 Crew Dragon mission planned for launch in mid-August. That date, she said, is “not necessarily an acknowledgment of readiness to conduct that flight test.”
When NASA and Boeing announced March 29 the July launch date for CFT, a three-month slip, officials said it would give them more time to complete certification of the spacecraft, notably its parachutes. The delay would also allow them to check avionics systems in the spacecraft after finding a logic error in one unit.
Parachute certification remains a “pacing item” for the launch, Sanders said, but also brought up several other issues, some of which she said were only recently revealed through analysis of data products as part of the certification process. She mentioned specific open risks of ongoing integrated software testing as well as battery sidewall rupture concerns, a risk accepted “for the interim only.”
“It is imperative that NASA not succumb to pressure, even unconsciously, to get CFT launched without adequately addressing all the remaining impediments to certification,” she said, adding that any decision to accept risk for the short-duration CFT flight should not justify accepting it for later operational flights lasting up to six months.
“Given the number of remaining challenges to certification of Starliner, we strongly encourage NASA to step back and take a measured look at the remaining body of work with respect to flying CFT,” she concluded, arguing that the agency should bring in an independent team, such as from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center, “to take a deep look at the items on the path to closure.”
Neither Boeing nor NASA have provided many updates on the status of preparations for the CFT mission. A Boeing website devoted to Starliner updates was last updated with the March announcement of the new July launch date.
At a May 16 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee, Phil McAlister, director of the commercial space division in NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, reiterated the planned CFT launch date of no earlier than July 21. “We’ve made a lot of good progress over the last three or four months on the hardware. I think the hardware is in good shape,” he said.
However, he said that certification work continued on the vehicle and was the pacing item for CFT. Parachute verification was the “long pole” in completing that work, with more parachute testing planned before the mission. “That could potentially affect the date of the flight,” he said. “At this point, if the tests go nominally, we should have plenty of time to make the July 21 date. But, you never know. That’s why we do these tests.”
Quelle: SN
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Update: 2.06.2023
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Boeing faces 'emerging issues' ahead of Starliner capsule's 1st crewed flight in July, NASA says
Starliner's Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station is scheduled to lift off on July 21.
Boeing still has some work to do to get its astronaut taxi ready for its first crewed jaunt this summer.
That mission, called Crew Flight Test (CFT), will launch NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Boeing's Starliner capsule no earlier than July 21.
Boeing aims to fuel Starliner next month in preparation for liftoff. During a "checkpoint review" conducted last Thursday (May 25), however, the company and NASA identified a few "emerging issues that need a path to closure" to resolve before taking that big step, according to NASA.
For example, teams will replace a bypass valve in the system that helps cool Starliner's avionics, NASA officials wrote in an update on Friday (May 26). Such work is expected to take just a week and won't affect the planned CFT timeline, they added.
Technicians and engineers are also assessing whether a certain kind of tape used to protect some of Starliner's wires poses a flammability risk. And Boeing and NASA teams are reassessing the efficiency of some joints in Starliner's parachute system "based on new data reviews as part of the ongoing design certification process," agency officials said in Friday's statement.
"We are taking a methodical approach to the first crewed flight of Starliner incorporating all of the lessons learned from the various in-depth testing campaigns, including Starliner's flight tests and the agency's verification efforts," Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in the same statement.
"All Orbital Flight Test-2 anomalies are closed," Stich added, referring to Starliner's first test mission, a successful uncrewed flight to the ISS that launched in May 2022. "In addition to the closeout of ongoing work, the team remains vigilant on tracking new technical issues as we complete certification for crewed flight."
Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore (at right) and pilot Suni Williams outside the Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 18, 2022. (Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)
Earlier this year, Boeing and NASA said that CFT was on track to launch in April. But in late March, the target date was pushed back to no earlier than July 21, a move made to accommodate further analyses of Starliner and its systems and an anticipated busy spring at the ISS.
For example, Axiom Space sent the four-astronaut Ax-2 mission to the orbiting lab this month, and SpaceX plans to launch a robotic Dragon cargo craft to the ISS on Saturday (June 3).
NASA and Boeing have completed most of the prep work needed to get Starliner ready for CFT, agency officials said in Friday's update. But another delay isn't out of the question, they added.
"Crew safety remains the highest priority for NASA and its industry providers, and emerging issues are not uncommon in human spaceflight, especially during development," Stich said. "The combined team is resilient and resolute in their goal of flying crew on Starliner as soon as it is safe to do so. If a schedule adjustment needs to be made in the future, then we will certainly do that as we have done before. We will only fly when we are ready."
Quelle: SC
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Update: 3.06.2023
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Boeing's Starliner crewed test flight delayed indefinitely because of safety concerns
The first crewed flight test for Boeing's Starliner capsule, originally slated to fly to the International Space Station next month, is facing more hardware-related delays – this time indefinitely.
On Thursday, company and NASA officials announced newly discovered safety concerns will keep the capsule, developed under a multibillion-dollar contract with the agency, grounded through the summer at the very least. Mark Nappi, vice president of Boeing's Starliner program, said in a teleconference Thursday that new findings with a critical system on parachutes and the flammability of tape used to secure wiring harnesses throughout the spacecraft were discovered last week during a joint pre-flight review with NASA.
Nappi told reporters fabric links that join the parachutes to the lines of the spacecraft, called soft link joints, need to be replaced and possibly recertified to withstand heavier loads and stresses to ensure crew safety.
"They were tested recently because of a discovery that we found during the review process where we believed that the data was recorded incorrectly," Nappi said. "We tested (the soft links), and sure enough, they did fail at the lower limit."
NASA's Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew Program, called the review process comprehensive, saying, "Some of the things that we're seeing here were actually things that were done many years ago. The parachute system has not changed."
Stich said the issue was present for Starliner's uncrewed flight test to the ISS last year, but it wasn't until last week's detailed review ahead of flying a crew that the issue with the link joints was discovered. The capsule's first crewed flight, called the Crew Flight Test or CFT, is tasked with taking astronauts Barry Wilmore and Suni Williams on a short-duration mission to the ISS.
"I wouldn't go indict anything on NASA or the Boeing safety process because we have these late findings. It's just now we're getting to the reviews of some systems," Stich said. "I'm seeing us find things and make changes to the vehicle and do additional testing and engineering where we need to, and that's what's required to go fly safely."
The second problem found last week is more extensive since the tape used to protect Starliner's wiring harnesses from nicks or abrasions runs for hundreds of feet through several of the spacecraft's internal systems.
"There is a lot of tape on the wire harnesses," Nappi said. "We're looking at solutions that would provide for potentially another type of wrapping over the existing tape in the most vulnerable areas that reduces the risk of a fire hazard."
Alongside the new safety issues, Boeing teams also found a faulty valve that had to be replaced prior to loading propellants on the vehicle, which was slated to happen in the next few weeks to make a targeted July 21 liftoff of CFT aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
Instead, Boeing teams are now standing down from all launch preparations.
This latest months-long delay comes after a decision last March to shuffle the Crew Flight Test to the summer to give NASA more time to certify 330 requirements for Starliner to fly humans. The same requirements applied to SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which NASA also selected to take astronauts to the ISS after the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. Both companies were selected for multibillion-dollar contracts nearly a decade ago; Boeing received $4.2 billion while SpaceX was awarded $2.6 billion for Crew Dragon.
The investment paid off in SpaceX's case when the company first launched Crew Dragon with two astronauts in May 2020. Since then, the company has flown seven crewed missions to the space station for NASA, two private missions for Axiom Space, and one privately crewed mission to orbit.
Starliner has only launched twice on uncrewed demonstration missions, the first of which in late 2019 failed to reach a proper orbit and required an emergency landing.
"Our ultimate goal is to have one SpaceX and one Boeing flight per year to rotate our crews to station, and so we support Boeing," Stich said. "We're doing everything we can during the investigation of each of these issues and trying to get to flight as soon as we can when it's safe to do so."
According to Stich, the next opportunity to launch Boeing's mission won't be until later this fall, but that hinges on Boeing being able to rectify the issues in time to obtain certification from NASA to support crewed flight.
"You could say we're disappointed because it means a delay, but the team is proud that we're making the right choices," Nappi said. "Bottom line here: safety is always our top priority. It's always been that way with human spaceflight; that drives this decision."
Quelle: Florida Today
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Update: 2.08.2023
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NASA, Boeing to Provide Progress Update on Starliner Crew Flight Test
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner crew ship approaches the International Space Station on the company's Orbital Flight Test-2 mission before automatically docking to the Harmony module's forward port. The orbiting lab was flying 268 miles above the south Pacific at the time of this photograph.
Credits: NASA
NASA and Boeing will host a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 7, to provide an update on the first astronaut flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner to and from the International Space Station.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live on NASA’s website.
Leaders will discuss spacecraft and team readiness ahead of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test – the final flight test prior to regular crewed missions to the space station on the next-generation system.
The briefing participants are:
Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
Joel Montalbano, manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, CST-100 Starliner, Boeing
To participate in the call, media must RSVP no later than one hour prior to the start of the event to: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.
The Starliner spacecraft will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, returning about a week later in White Sands, New Mexico.
The flight will carry two NASA astronaut test pilots, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, on the demonstration flight to prove the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner spacecraft.
Following a successful test flight with astronauts, NASA will begin the final process of certifying the Starliner spacecraft and systems for regular crew rotation flights to and from the space station.
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 9.08.2023
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Boeing's 1st astronaut flight bumped into next year, more repairs needed
Already running years behind, Boeing's first astronaut flight is now off until at least next March
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Already running years behind, Boeing’s first astronaut flight is now off until at least next March.
Problems with the parachute lines and flammable tape surfaced during final reviews in late spring, ahead of what should have been a July launch for the Starliner capsule. Boeing said Monday that it should be done removing the tape in the coming weeks. But a redesigned parachute system won’t be ready until December.
If a parachute drop test goes well late this year, company officials said the spacecraft should be ready to carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station as early as March. Starliner’s first crew flight will need to fit around other space station traffic, however, so it’s too early to set even a tentative date, according to officials.
To ensure there are no other problems, NASA and Boeing are conducting independent reviews.
Boeing program manager Mark Nappi said technicians are almost halfway done peeling off flammable tape that was used to protect capsule wiring. Tape that cannot be removed from vulnerable spots will be covered with a protective coating.
The original guidelines for usage of the tape were confusing, according to company and NASA officials, but they later determined it could not be used in some areas because it was flammable.
The parachute issue will take longer to resolve. Part of the parachute lines known as soft links did not meet safety standards, having gotten past improper testing years ago. A new, more robust design will be incorporated into upgraded parachutes already in the works.
“There’s always the mystery of something else that can pop up,” Nappi told reporters. But given the current situation, “we have a pretty good schedule laid out” to launch as early as March.
NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX nearly a decade ago to deliver astronauts to and from the space station. SpaceX is now three years into its taxi service. Boeing has only had a pair of Starliner space test flights with no one aboard.
NASA said it still wants two competing crew launchers, even as the projected 2030 end of the space station program draws ever closer. The goal is to fly one Boeing and one SpaceX crew flight each year.
Quelle: abcNews
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Update: 16.10.2023
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Boeing's 1st Starliner flight with astronauts delayed to April 2024
The first operational trip of Starliner has also been pushed back.
Boeing's Starliner space capsule docked at the International Space Station during an uncrewed test flight.(Image credit: ESA)
We'll have to wait a bit longer to see Boeing's Starliner spacecraft carry astronauts for the first time.
The first crewed test flight of Starliner has been pushed back an additional month, to no earlier than mid-April 2024, NASA officials said in a release on Thursday (Oct. 12). No reason was given for the change. The target date for the first operational flight of the Boeing spaceship has also been delayed, to early 2025 from summer 2024, agency officials added.
NASA and Boeing had previously said that they were eyeing early March 2024 for Starliner's debut astronaut mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT). That was just an anticipated spacecraft readiness date, however, not an official launch target.
CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a shakeout cruise to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The mission has faced a series of delays due to various technical problems, pushing its liftoff back repeatedly.
For example, CFT had been slated to fly this past July, but that plan was scuttled after teams discovered issues with Starliner's wiring and its parachute system.
NASA picked Boeing and SpaceX in September 2014 to provide astronaut flights to and from the ISS, giving each company multibillion-dollar contracts. SpaceX's seventh operational flight to the ISS launched on Aug. 25, while Starliner has launched just twice, neither time with people on board.
Starliner suffered several problems on its first mission, called Orbital Flight Test (OFT), shortly after launch in December 2019 and did not arrive at the ISS as planned. The successor mission, May 2022's OFT-2, made it to the ISS and back to Earth.
NASA's Thursday news release also confirmed the launch target date for SpaceX's Crew-8 mission as mid-February 2024. Crew-8's four crew membershave already been named. They are NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick (commander), Michael Barratt (pilot), and Jeanette Epps (mission specialist), and cosmonaut and mission specialist Alexander Grebenkin.
SpaceX's Crew-9 mission would then launch in August 2024, shortly before Crew-8 returns to Earth. A tenth "crew rotation mission" is expected for early 2025, NASA officials said; it could either be SpaceX's Crew-10 mission or Starliner-1, Boeing's first operational crewed flight to the ISS.
Boeing and NASA had been eyeing summer of 2024 for Starliner-1. But that target date has now been pushed back, to allow time to review results from CFT, including "incorporation of anticipated learning, approvals of final certification products and completion of readiness and certification reviews ahead of that [Starliner-1] mission," NASA officials wrote.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 22.11.2023
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Starliner “on track” for April crewed test flight
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner crew capsule being prepared for the Crew Flight Test mission. Credit: Boeing/John Grant
WASHINGTON — NASA says the first crewed launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner vehicle remains on schedule for the middle of April as the company completes work to resolve the latest technical problems with the vehicle.
Speaking at a Nov. 20 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee, Phil McAlister, director of the agency’s commercial space division, said preparations for the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission were on schedule for a launch as soon as April 14.
“We are on track for that launch,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot of things to do, obviously.”
He said NASA and Boeing had closed out all the work on all the issues from Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2, the second uncrewed test flight of the spacecraft in May 2022. They have also completed 98% of the “cert products,” or certification paperwork, needed for CFT.
The mission, which will fly NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station for a stay of at least eight days, had been scheduled to take place this year after the completion of OFT-2. However, NASA and Boeing said in August they were delaying the mission to no earlier than March 2024 to resolve two problems found during preparations for CFT: removing tape in wire harnesses in the capsule that is flammable and redesigning “soft links” in the spacecraft’s parachutes to increase their safety margin.
McAlister said he believed that the tape remediation work was complete. Boeing, in a statement to SpaceNews, confirmed that the company had removed more than 1,300 meters of the tape from the Starliner capsule. The company also wrapped the flammable tape in some areas with a non-flammable tape or covered it with a “non-flammable multi-layer fabric sleeve.”
“We went zone by zone and identified all the tape and what would be the risk to removing the tape,” Dave McCann, Boeing’s chief engineer for the Starliner program, said in the statement. “The Boeing and NASA teams worked together to balance those risks and create the safest vehicle possible.”
For the parachutes, McAlister said that one drop test is scheduled for January to test the performance of the redesigned soft links. “That will be a really important test to get behind us,” he said. “If that goes smoothly, we are definitely on track for an April 14th launch.”
The CFT mission, besides the first crewed flight for Starliner, includes two key milestones. He pointed out that it will be the first time a crewed U.S. capsule lands on land, rather than splashing down in the ocean. It is also in line to be first crewed launch from Cape Canaveral, rather than neighboring Kennedy Space Center, since Apollo 7 in 1968. CFT will launch on an Atlas 5 from Space Launch Complex (SLC) 41.
However, SpaceX could beat Boeing to that second milestone. McAlister confirmed that SpaceX and Axiom Space are in discussions about launching the Ax-3 private astronaut mission from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40 where SpaceX is completing construction of a crew and cargo access tower. Ax-3 is scheduled to launch as soon as Jan. 10, and going from SLC-40 would allow Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 lunar lander mission to launch Jan. 12 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A, which is configured for fueling the lander shortly before launch.
He said the key was getting CFT successfully flown so that it can begin long-duration ISS crew rotation missions, alternating with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. “We will be very, very pleased to get that off and get Starliner into the fleet, flying regular missions to the ISS.”
Quelle: SN
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Update: 14.01.2024
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NASA’s Wallops C-130 Plays Vital Role in Successful Parachute Airdrop Test
NASA’s C-130 cargo aircraft releases a dart-shaped test vehicle above the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground on Jan. 9 to begin the testing sequence for a Boeing Starliner parachute system.
Credit: U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground
NASA’s C-130 Hercules, managed at Wallops Flight Facility’s Aircraft Office in Virginia, provided aerial delivery support for a successful commercial crew parachute airdrop test Jan. 9 at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. This week’s testing was in support of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and partner, Boeing, which are developing crew transportation capability to and from the International Space Station.
Up for testing was a modified parachute system for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. The system, which involved two ringsail parachutes, required a demonstration set in stressed conditions to certify successful deployment.
During the demonstration, the Wallops C-130 team deployed a 27,000-pound payload comprised of the Parachute Compartment Drop Test Vehicle and Mid-Altitude Deployment System. The team released the payload from an altitude of 13,000 feet while coordinating and timing their efforts with U.S. Army UH-60s and a NASA AFRC B-200 aircraft used to capture photos and video documentation of the mission.
The Wallops C-130 team has supported 16 successful commercial crew parachute airdrop tests since 2018
Quelle: NASA
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Update: 26.01.2024
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NASA, Boeing Move into Next Phases of Flight Test Prep
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner crew ship is pictured docked to the Harmony module’s forward port on the International Space Station as the orbitng complex flew 261 miles above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexican state of Nayarit. Photo credit: NASA
NASA and Boeing teams are preparing for a flight test no earlier than mid-April in which the Starliner spacecraft will carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.
Teams have made significant progress in resolving technical issues identified during the agency’s flight certification process. Following a successful drop test earlier this month in which recent modifications to Starliner’s parachute system were validated, NASA and Boeing are working to perform final analysis of the test data and complete overall system certification ahead of Starliner’s first crewed flight. This standard NASA process is designed to independently verify Starliner’s parachute system meets crew safety requirements and is expected to continue over the next six to eight weeks.
Meanwhile, Boeing completed removal of P213 tape that may have posed a flammability risk in certain environmental conditions. Boeing removed more than 17 pounds, or roughly 4,300 feet, of the material from the Starliner crew module. For areas in which removal of the tape carried an increased risk to Starliner hardware, Boeing applied tested remediation techniques such as overwrapping the P213 tape with another non-flammable, chafe-resistant tape, and installing fire breaks on wire harnesses. The agency worked to clarify the properties and safe usage guidance relative to P213 tape in the NASA Materials Usage Agreements database to prevent a similar misapplication from occurring across industry in the future.
Additionally, major integrated flight operations exercises are underway. Mission support teams recently completed a two-day undock to landing mission dress rehearsal with recovery personnel on the ground at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Teams simulated Crew Flight Test procedures and spacecraft sequences starting with pre-undock powerup and continuing through undock, entry, landing, and crew recovery. The exercise provided an additional training opportunity for NASA and Boeing to practice Starliner’s return to Earth in a high-fidelity environment before the flight.
Teams from ULA (United Launch Alliance) are preparing the Atlas V rocket hardware for processing and spacecraft integration. Boeing is targeting completion of Starliner assembly at the end of January. The upgraded parachutes were delivered and installed on the spacecraft, along with Starliner’s forward heat shield and ascent cover. Prior to fueling operations, following final installation of thermal protection system blankets and internal closeout work, Boeing will begin flowing a nitrogen purge into the Starliner’s service module to ensure ambient moisture does not permeate into the propulsion isolation or active thermal control system valves. In the weeks ahead, NASA and Boeing will work to identify any remaining work before loading Starliner propellant.
The next couple of months teams will:
work to complete overall Crew Flight Test certification;
put the finishing touches on the Starliner spacecraft, which is already joined to its service module;
run simulations of operational conditions to rehearse every phase of the mission with the crew, flight controllers, and ground operations teams;
fuel the spacecraft with propellants for its onboard thrusters for in-space maneuvering;
stack the ULA Atlas V rocket and Starliner spacecraft before rolling them to the pad at Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida;
and work through detailed systems reviews, culminating with a flight readiness review in the days before launch to verify the system and teams are ready.
Starliner’s Crew Flight Test will launch NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the orbiting laboratory for a stay of one to two weeks before returning them to a landing in the southwest United States. The mission will mirror the tasks of regular crew rotation flights for Boeing’s Starliner under contracts with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
