Space News reports that The Boeing Company and NASA “say they’re confident they have resolved a valve issue that delayed a test flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle last year and are ready to try again later this month.” Boeing on Thursday “moved the Starliner spacecraft from a processing facility at the Kennedy Space Center…to a United Launch Alliance vehicle processing facility at Space Launch Complex 40. The Starliner will be installed on the Atlas 5 rocket there for final preparations for the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission, scheduled for launch May 19.”
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Tag: Starliner
Boeing Planning Starliner Test Flight Atop ULA Atlas V on May 19
The Houston Chronicle reports that The Boeing Company has announced that it plans to launch its CST-100 Starliner test flight – originally scheduled for August 3 of last year – on May 19. “Next month, Boeing will launch its Starliner spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. They will lift off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.”
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Space Florida to Bring Spacecraft Manufacturing to Melbourne Airport
Florida Today reports that the Space Florida board of directors “approved a staff request to complete negotiations with a company that is expected to invest more than $300 million in a new facility at the Melbourne Orlando International Airport.” The facility will bring 2,100 spacecraft manufacturing jobs “expected to have an average wage of $84,000 a year, plus benefits.”
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Starliner Valve Investigation Focuses on Moisture Interaction with Propellant
Space News reported that The Boeing Company continues to investigate what caused 13 of the CST-100 Starliner’s valves to stick in the closed position before its scrubbed test flight in early August. The leading cause for the valve failure “is that nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) propellant, leaking through the valve, reacted with moisture and created nitric oxide, corroding the valve.”
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Reason for Starliner Launch Delay a Mystery
CNN Business reports that The Boeing Company’s Starliner test flight was delayed once again on Tuesday to an unspecified date. Officials have so far only been able to rule out software issues, indicating the issue is unrelated to the 2019 Starliner misfire.
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Boeing, NASA Aim to Launch Starliner for OFT-2 Mission July 30
SPACE reports that The Boeing Company plans to launch its second Starliner test flight “no sooner than July 30 – slightly earlier than the previously announced target of early August. The upcoming liftoff will kick off Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), an uncrewed mission to the International Space Station.” Boeing “last tried such a test flight in December 2019, but the spacecraft did not reach the station as planned due to a series of technical problems. Further delays ensued as Boeing attempted to meet NASA requirements stemming from a postflight review, and technical and weather issues contributed as well.”
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NASA, Boeing Push Starliner Test Flight to Early April
Space News reports that NASA and The Boeing Company said Wednesday that the second uncrewed Boeing CST-100 Starliner flight test will be pushed from March 25 to no earlier than April 2. The test was delayed in order “to replace hardware damaged during processing of the spacecraft.” The announcement “comes after Boeing recently replaced avionics units on the vehicle that were damaged by a power surge that NASA said was caused by ‘a ground support equipment configuration issue during final checkouts’ of the spacecraft.” Boeing also is “working to complete testing of software on the spacecraft, addressing one of the key issues with the first OFT mission in December 2019.” NASA “said that teams have completed about 95% of the recommendations identified by an independent review of that mission nearly a year ago, which focused primarily on software.”
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Boeing Re-Qualifies Starliner Software for Test Flight In March
Spaceflight Now reports that The Boeing Company said Monday that it re-qualified the software for its Starliner crew capsule. Kennedy Space Center technicians “connected the crew and service modules for the next unpiloted Starliner test flight to the International Space Station in March.” This comes “after programming errors cut short the spacecraft’s first orbital test flight in 2019.” The second Starliner Orbital Flight Test is being targeted for March 29, and will be “a repeat of the first test flight in 2019.” Managers from Boeing and NASA “agreed last year to re-fly the OFT mission to demonstrate an entire Starliner flight sequence before clearing the craft to fly astronauts.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)