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Author of the article:
Reuters
Steve Gorman and Joey Roulette
Publication date:
May 25, 2022 • 11 minutes ago • 2 minutes of reading • Join the conversation
Content of the article
Boeing Co’s Starliner capsule returned from the International Space Station and landed in New Mexico on Wednesday, completing a high-stakes test flight as NASA’s next vehicle to transport humans into orbit.
Less than a week after its launch from Cape Canaveral’s U.S. Space Force base in Florida, the CST-100 Starliner capsule sank through the Earth’s atmosphere Wednesday night before parachuting over the White Sands space desert, New Mexico. He landed on time at 18:49 EDT (2249 GMT).
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The approximately five-hour voyage back from the space station, an orbital post about 250 miles above the Earth, checks the latest phase of a repeat test flight that Boeing first tried in 2019 but failed to complete after colliding with damage to software.
The latest test mission moves Starliner, plagued by repeated delays and costly engineering failures, a big step closer to providing NASA with a second reliable route to transport astronauts to and from the space station.
Starliner was launched into orbit last Thursday on an Atlas V rocket provided by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin United Launch Alliance and achieved its main goal – a meeting with the ISS, although four of its many onboard propulsion devices did not work on the road.
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Boeing engineers also had to improvise a workaround for a defect in thermal control during the capsule’s final approach to the space station.
After resuming manned flights to orbit from the United States in 2020, nine years after the end of the space shuttle program, the U.S. space agency had to rely solely on Falcon 9 rockets and Crew Dragon capsules from the private company of billionaire Elon Musk SpaceX.
Previously, the only other way to reach the orbital laboratory was to board the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, an alternative that is currently less attractive in light of heightened US-Russian tensions over the war in Ukraine.
Much is on the line for Boeing as the Chicago-based company tries to emerge from successive crises in its jet business and space defense business. The Starliner program alone has cost the company nearly $ 600 million in the last 2-1 / 2 years.
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An ill-fated Starliner’s first orbital test flight in late 2019 almost ended in vehicle loss after a software problem that effectively thwarted the spacecraft’s ability to reach the space station.
Subsequent problems with the Starliner propulsion system supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne prompted Boeing to delete a second attempt to launch the capsule last summer.
Starliner remained in custody for another nine months while the two companies debated what caused the fuel valves to close and which company was responsible for repairing them.
The test mission, which ended Wednesday, could pave the way for Starliner to fly its first astronaut crew to the space station sometime next year, pending a redesign of the Starliner propulsion system valves and resolving the propulsion issues that have arisen in middle – mission.
The orbital post is currently home to a crew of three NASA astronauts from the United States, an Italian astronaut from the European Space Agency and three Russian astronauts. While the Starliner was parked next to the station, some of these astronauts boarded the capsule to analyze the conditions in its cabin.
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