National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
NASA and Boeing are making final preparations for the Starliner spacecraft to detach from the International Space Station and land at White Sands Spaceport in southern New Mexico next Friday, September 6.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were scheduled to return to Earth aboard the Starliner, will remain at the space station after NASA decided last week to end Boeing’s test flight without a crew member. NASA officials decided it was too risky to put astronauts on the Starliner after the spacecraft’s thruster failure during a flight to the space station in early June.
Instead, Wilmore and Williams will return by February aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, extending their stay at the space station from eight days to eight months. The Starliner spacecraft, flying on autopilot, is scheduled to depart the station at approximately 6:04 p.m. EDT (10:04 p.m. UTC) on September 6. The spacecraft is scheduled to ignite its engines to deorbit and parachute land in New Mexico at 12:03 a.m. EDT on September 7, NASA said in a statement on Thursday.
NASA officials on Thursday completed the second half of a two-day flight readiness review to get the go-ahead to undock and land the Starliner spacecraft. But because there are strict weather rules for landing the Starliner spacecraft, NASA and Boeing executives are expected to decide next week whether to go ahead with the return next Friday night or wait for improved weather at the White Sands landing zone.
According to NASA, over the past few days, flight controllers have updated parameters in the Starliner’s software to allow it to handle a fully autonomous return to Earth without input from astronauts in the cockpit. Boeing has conducted two test flights of the uncrewed Starliner using the same type of autonomous re-entry and landing maneuver. The mission, called the Crew Flight Test (CFT), was the first time astronauts had been launched into orbit inside a Starliner spacecraft and was expected to pave the way for sending rotating four-person crews to the space station on future operational missions.
The failure of the Starliner spacecraft to complete its test flight on schedule has raised fundamental questions about the future of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said last week that Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, told him the company remains focused on Starliner, but Boeing will cover the costs of resolving the thruster overheating and helium leak issues that hindered the CFT mission. Boeing has not made any public statements about the long-term future of the Starliner program since NASA decided to salvage the astronauts from the spacecraft for return to Earth.
Prepare for the unexpected
NASA is apparently open to returning Wilmore and Williams to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, but the change would disrupt crew operations aboard the space station. This week, astronauts are modifying the interior of the Dragon spacecraft currently docked to the space station so that it can assist the six-person crew in the event of an emergency evacuation.
When Starliner leaves the space station next week, Dragon will serve as a lifeboat for Wilmore and Williams. In the event of a fire, a collision with space debris, a medical emergency or any other reason that the crew must leave the facility, Starliner astronauts will return home in makeshift seats installed beneath the Dragon’s four regular seats, where the crew normally places their cargo during launch and landing.
If the Dragon spacecraft’s cabin depressurizes during descent, at least one of the Starliner astronauts would have to return without a protective spacesuit. That has never happened before on a Dragon mission, but the astronauts are wearing SpaceX-made pressure suits to mitigate the risk. The four astronauts who launched on Dragon wore pressure suits, and NASA officials said a spare SpaceX pressure suit already installed on the space station would fit one of the Starliner astronauts perfectly, but they declined to say which one.
The pressure suit for Starliner’s other crew member is scheduled to launch on the next Dragon spacecraft (Crew 9 mission), which is scheduled to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket after September 24. Starliner’s troubles have also put a damper on plans for the Crew 9 mission.
On Friday, NASA announced it was dropping two astronauts from the Crew 9 mission, including Commander Zena Cardman, a spaceflight novice. Veteran astronaut Nick Hague will step down from the controls and take over as Crew 9’s commander. He will be joined by Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.
NASA and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, have a contract to launch Russian cosmonauts to the space station on the Dragon mission and American astronauts on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. In exchange for NASA providing a flight for Gorbunov, NASA astronaut Don Pettit is scheduled to fly to the space station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft next month.
The so-called “seat swap” arrangement ensures that at least one U.S. astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut will be stationed on the space station at all times, even if the Dragon or Soyuz remain grounded, to oversee each partner’s segment of the space station and maintain propulsion, power generation, directional control, thermal control and other functions critical to keeping the lab operational.
