CAPE CANAVER, Florida (AP) – A capsule of a Boeing crew was launched into orbit on Thursday during a second test flight without astronauts, after being grounded for years by flaws that could doom the spacecraft.
There was only a test dummy on board. If the capsule reaches the International Space Station on Friday and everything else goes well, two or three NASA test pilots could be hooked up by the end of this year or the beginning of next for the company’s first flight.
This is the third Boeing photo in the high-stakes demonstration.
At least this time, Starliner reached the right orbit, quickly chasing the space station despite the damage of a pair of propulsion devices. But the most important meeting and the jump came out.
“This is another big day for us,” said Mark Napie, vice president and program manager for Boeing’s sales crews. “So we may have a few sleepless nights to go through the rest of the mission, but we’re feeling really good today.”
Starliner’s first test flight in 2019 was hit by such serious software bugs that the capsule ended up in the wrong orbit and had to miss the space station. The spacecraft was close to destruction as ground controllers hastily disrupted the mission.
After dozens of safety fixes, Boeing returned a different capsule to the launch pad last summer. The corroded valves stopped the countdown, which led to a new round of repairs.
The long-running test flight program costs Boeing approximately $ 600 million.
“We will not fly (crews) unless we feel we have redeemed the risk,” said NASA space operations chief Katie Lueders.
Boeing is seeking redemption as it tries to catch up with SpaceX, NASA’s other contracted taxi service. Elon Musk’s company flew with astronauts to and from the space station for two years and delivered cargo for a decade.
Eager to reduce its costly dependence on Russia to transport crews, NASA has hired Boeing and SpaceX to launch astronauts to the space station since the end of the shuttle program in 2011. That’s why it’s so important for Boeing’s Starliner to succeed, a NASA administrator said. Bill Nelson.
“In this case, we always want a backup,” Nelson told the Associated Press hours before takeoff.
Different in appearance, but similar in function to SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, Boeing’s fully automated capsule will try to dock in space alone. The astronauts at the station will be ready to control the capsule with a remote control if necessary.
The capsule still has 10 good pushers for major movements, including dropping out of orbit at the end of the flight, officials said. The two failures actually fired briefly before shutting down prematurely one after the other; A backup is turned on to get the spacecraft into proper orbit.
“We are doing this step by step and now we need to take this spaceship through its steps and learn some things,” Luders told reporters after takeoff.
Starliner will spend about five days in the space station before heading to land in the New Mexico desert next Wednesday.
NASA has not yet finalized which astronauts will be on Starliner’s first crew. The program was so backward that the first three withdrew. Leading candidates gathered at Cape Canaveral for the evening launch of the Starliner on top of the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket.
“We’re excited because we’re next,” said astronaut Butch Wilmore.
In addition to Rosie the Rocketwoman, a version of Rosie Riveter’s space war from World War II, the capsule carries food and space travel equipment for the station’s seven residents. US space travel has been delayed since an astronaut’s helmet took over in March. NASA is sending additional absorbent pads for use in helmets in case an emergency spacewalk is needed while the investigation continues.
Boeing also flies memories of historic black colleges and universities and tree seeds similar to the ones Apollo astronauts took to the moon, which became the so-called lunar trees here on Earth.
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