After two trips to the launch pad that ultimately did not go into space, two NASA astronauts finally went into space Wednesday in a vehicle built by Boeing, the aerospace giant.
The maiden voyage of Starliner, a 15-foot-wide capsule, with astronauts on board comes four years and six days after SpaceX, the other company NASA has hired to provide astronaut rides, launched its first mission with astronauts to the International Space Station. Boeing now plans to offer the service as well, but a series of costly delays repeatedly prevented astronauts from flying the company’s vehicle sooner. SpaceX, once seen as an upstart, has launched a total of thirteen crew members into orbit.
The long-awaited flight of the Boeing vehicle is the latest step in NASA’s efforts to rely more heavily on the private sector for its human spaceflight program.
“This is another milestone in NASA’s extraordinary history,” Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, said at a press conference after the launch.
When Starliner arrives at the space station on Thursday, it will join a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule already docked there. NASA officials have been steadfast in saying they want two different U.S. spacecraft that could carry astronauts into orbit.
“We always like to have a backup,” Mr. Nelson said. “That makes it safer for our astronauts.”
If the vehicle’s mission goes well, it will also spell good news for Boeing, whose aviation safety record has come under intense scrutiny after a side panel on an Alaska Airlines plane exploded during a flight earlier this year.
Boeing’s space division is also under pressure as work on Starliner is taking years longer than the company or NASA expected. Technical pitfalls included inadequate software testing, corroded propellant valves, flammable tape and a key component in the parachute system that turned out to be weaker than expected.
A few minutes before launch, Butch Wilmore, the mission commander, said, “Let’s put some fire in this rocket. Let’s push it to the sky.”
Suni Williams, the other member of the crew serving as pilot, added: “Let’s go, Calypso, take us to space and back,” referring to the name she gave to the capsule, after the ship that was used by the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.
translation
-
“Suni and I are honored to share this dream of spaceflight with all of you. So let’s get started, and let’s light some fire in this rocket and push it towards the sky, while these tough Americans have been preparing for it.” ‘Let’s go, Calypso. Take us to space and back.”
At 10:52 a.m. Eastern Time, the engines of an Atlas V rocket ignited, lifting the Starliner spacecraft on an arc-shaped path toward space. The launch and the first parts of today’s flight into orbit provided a welcome relief and went smoothly.
translation
-
“Houston, Starliner. “Roger.”
“I’m smiling, believe me,” said Mark Nappi, the Boeing official in charge of Starliner. “But it’s a bit of controlled emotion, because this mission has many phases. And we just completed the first one.
translation
-
“You hit the gas well.” “Good accelerator.” “Good SRB burnout.” “Good SRB.”
A small problem concerned a system that provides cooling during the journey to orbit. The cooling system, also called a sublimator, used slightly more water than expected. Once in orbit, the spacecraft switched to a different cooling system, a radiator, and while engineers will investigate what happened, it will not affect the mission.
Mr Wilmore and Mrs Williams will arrive at the station at 12.15pm on Thursday.
Along the way, Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams will take time to try out manually piloting the spacecraft, something that is usually not necessary except in emergencies. Life support systems will also be fully monitored.
The astronauts will then spend at least eight days on the space station before returning to Earth. The mission has a total of 87 test targets. “There are a lot of, I call them ergonomic types of flight test targets,” Mr. Nappi said. “How do the chairs fit? How do the suits work? What do the displays look like?”
After the mission, NASA and Boeing will review data from the flight to complete Starliner’s certification. The spacecraft would then be ready to perform operational flights once a year to transport NASA crews for six-month stays on the space station. Each Starliner capsule – Boeing has two for orbital missions – is designed for ten missions.
The path to Wednesday’s flight was years in the making.
In 2014, NASA awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, to build replacements for the space shuttles that had ferried astronauts to and from the space station before their retirement in 2011. NASA had started paying Russia to fly its rockets. astronauts orbiting the Earth on Soyuz rockets.
Congress was skeptical and repeatedly cut the money NASA requested for the commercial crew program. At the time, SpaceX was on the rise, but it wasn’t the dominant force it has become in the rocket launch industry today. Boeing’s selection helped reassure lawmakers that NASA was making a good investment.
NASA originally said Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon could be ready in 2017.
Both companies took longer than planned, which is not unusual in the aerospace industry.
But by December 2019, Boeing appeared to be in the home stretch. Then a Starliner test without astronauts on board went wrong due to software problems and a planned docking was canceled. NASA labeled the flight a “high-visibility close call” because the software errors could have led to the destruction of the spacecraft if not fixed before reentry.
Boeing and NASA decided to repeat the unmanned test, but that test was delayed by corroded propellant valves and Starliner was not relaunched until May 2022.
Then even more problems emerged. Protective tape wrapped around the wiring insulation was found to be flammable, and an important but weak part of the parachute system could have failed if Starliner’s three parachutes had not deployed properly.
Those delays cost Boeing $1.4 billion, and while Starliner remained grounded, SpaceX launched nine crewed missions for NASA (one, Crew-8, is currently docked at the station) and four additional commercial missions carrying non-NASA passengers on-board.
This year’s series of launch attempts began on May 6. That flight was sunk by a malfunctioning valve on the Atlas V rocket. Subsequently, a small helium leak was discovered in the Starliner’s propulsion system, leading to several weeks of investigation.
A second launch attempt on Saturday lasted just 3 minutes and 50 seconds before liftoff, until the computers autonomously handling the final parts of the launch procedure encountered a problem and halted the countdown.
In the following days, technicians replaced a faulty power component, paving the way for Wednesday’s successful launch.
Niraj Chokshi reporting contributed.