"We feel very comfortable:" Starliner on track for June 1 launch from Cape Canaveral
After spending weeks working through first an issue with a valve on the rocket then a helium leak on the spacecraft and, finally, making sure that if multiple things went wrong in space, the crewed Starliner could still get home, NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance teams say they are now progressing with confidence toward a June 1 launch attempt.
Still to overcome: one more full-scale NASA review, set to occur Wednesday, and if all goes well, that would clear Boeing's Starliner to proceed toward liftoff 12:25 p.m. EDT on Saturday, June 1.
"NASA, ULA, and Boeing teams have spent the last couple weeks on analysis and testing for the Atlas V and Boeing Starliner to prepare for that first crewed flight test to the ISS," NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said during a Friday news conference.
"It was just impressive to see the team working so thoroughly, so collaboratively though a very, very complicated issue. One of the things that popped out to me was this is why it's taken a while for us to be ready to discuss the issue. It's so complicated. There's so many things going on," said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
During the news conference, it was revealed that yet another issue had been discovered with Starliner − this time in the subject of system redundancy, meaning if something fails could the mission still proceed as planned.
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What were the issues with Starliner?
The initial problem arose during Starliner's May 6 launch attempt which was scrubbed due to a faulty oxygen valve on the Atlas V.
While the oxygen valve on the rocket was replaced by ULA — a task that was not easy to do and required returning the rocket with Starliner atop it to the Vertical Integration Facility — a helium leak in Starliner's service module was detected and narrowed down to a flange on a thruster. This helium leak was revealed to be seven psi per minute, which is considered small, and was most likely due to a faulty seal on this flange.
"We figured the most likely cause of the leak is a seal that seals that flange. In between the two metal parts of the flange there's a seal, much like you would have on any piece of your plumbing at home, or faucet, or anything like that," said Steve Stitch, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
"We went back a couple of days later, and proved to ourselves that the leak was stable," added Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of the Commercial Crew Program at Boeing.
But then another abnormality caught the attention of Boeing and NASA involving whether the Starliner had backup systems that could get it through a deorbit burn, the power required to take the spacecraft out of orbit and return it to Earth, even if it experienced some extreme system failures.
To this effect, Nappi stated that there are "over 17,000 potential combinations of failures" for Starliner. This means the possibility of this scenario occurring is a remote 1 in 17,000.
"We have now a solution," said Boeing's Nappi on the subject of the redundancy issue. "It's backed by test data. It's backed by flight data, and the guidance and navigation modeling have reinforced that this technique will work. Of course we've had independent verification on it. The crew has tested it, and we feel very comfortable with the situation that we have."
It was stated that should a thruster in the service module leak again, the system can handle up to four more leaks.
While the team has come to a solution for this flight, the plan is to look into the design of the spacecraft going forward with Starliner-1. Right now, Boeing needs to prove the Starliner can take a crew to the ISS and back in this crewed test flight.
When the successful flight does happen, Boeing will be certified to move towards ferrying NASA astronauts on the Starliner-1 mission.
Confidence that Starliner is ready for launch
"It is an important flight for us. It is not easy. I've been in human spaceflight for 37 years, and there's challenges in every single flight. There were challenges on the space shuttle. There's challenges with the Orion vehicle that we're learning about as we flew that test flight," said Stich.
The team planned to take the Memorial Day weekend to rest and prepare for the week that lies ahead. There will be a flight readiness review on Wednesday, which will confirm the readiness of the team to follow through with the June 1 launch date.
The Starliner Crew − Butch and Suni − wait to fly
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, now in quarantine for over a month, have been kept in the loop. While waiting in Houston, they have been running through Starliner flight sims, rehearsing every possible system failure. As of Friday, the crew has been told to be ready to fly.
Stitch said the crew told him, "Steve, don't worry about us" adding that both are in good spirits.
"I think they worry about us sometimes more than we worry about them," said Stitch.
The crew will be flying back to the Space Coast on Tuesday to prepare for flight.
Starliner backup launch dates
If needed, backup launch dates are as follows:
12:03 p.m. Sunday, June 2
10:52 a.m. Wednesday, June 5
10:29 a.m., Thursday, June 6
Be sure to follow the FLORIDA TODAY Space Team at floridatoday.com/space for all the latest space news from Cape Canaveral.
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Boeing's Starliner could fly astronauts June 1 from Cape Canaveral
