There is still the return trip: Starliner will not leave the International Space Station until approximately 8:30 p.m. on May 25. However, after a few days in orbit, NASA, Boeing and ULA have multiplied the declarations which show that the capsule will have its place in the American space landscape to come.
Now, she still has to come back to Earth without a problem…
Starliner OFT-2, the return
It’s been almost five days since the Starliner capsule docked, almost as planned, with the International Space Station. A success, finally, for a program which has accumulated delays… and which hopes to finish this second uninhabited mission in style next night.
The NASA and Boeing teams have indeed determined that the weather criteria over New Mexico were satisfactory for an undocking on May 25 at around 8:30 p.m., followed by a landing between 12:05 a.m. and 12:50 a.m.
The capsule and its “mannequin-passenger”, Rosie, will bring back equipment from the ISS, in particular cumbersome (but expensive) empty nitrogen canisters… But in reality, by landing on the White Sands site, c Above all, it is a hope for the Starliner program to get back on track after two and a half years of delays, investigations and problems, and to calmly consider flying astronauts there.
Who wants to fly on a Boeing capsule?
If all goes well tonight, Starliner’s next flight is expected before the end of the year, for a “short” mission (which could still last between 7 days and a few weeks) with at least two astronauts on board.
It is the CFT mission, for Crew Test Flight, which will be used to certify that the Starliner capsule is fit to fly astronauts for long NASA missions. It can thus be included in the demanding crew rotation schedules to and from the International Space Station.
The American agency, which is responsible for naming the astronauts who will fly on CFT, will not announce the names until this summer, when Boeing and the official authorities have finished verifying the data for this first successful round trip. Astronauts Mike Fincke, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams are currently the three executives of the program, and are therefore the most high-profile. Whoever is not on board is virtually guaranteed to command the first long rotation.
Starliner will fly on Atlas… and on Vulcan?
At a press conference at the end of last week, representatives of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) also gave another assurance that the rocket supplier will keep the Atlas V launcher available for the CFT mission. But this will also be the case for the six flights to which NASA has contractually committed to use Starliner for crew rotations with Boeing. This means extending the life of Atlas V until around 2028-2029, at the rate of one take-off per year, but ULA assures that this will not be a problem. What if more flights were needed?
NASA, Boeing and ULA agree that if necessary, ULA can have the time to certify its modernized launcher, Vulcan, for manned flight service. The process is long and involves some modifications, but the prospect is attractive, for ULA as for Boeing. It should be noted, however, that this ten-year plan implies that Starliner will not act as a “carrier” for tourists as Crew Dragon currently does in the service of Axiom or wealthy billionaires. A missed opportunity? It still remains to really go into service… and it starts with landing correctly tonight.
On the same subject :
Boeing and NASA are ready to retest the Starliner space capsule
Source :SpaceNews
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