Despite the messy situation that is Boeing’s commercial aviation arm, the company is slated to face another test when its space capsule, the CST-100 Starliner, will launch its first crewed mission—eventually.
Currently, the plan is to launch on May 21, but if you’re making watch plans keep in mind that the launch date has already been delayed twice this month alone.
Whenever it does occur, the latest Starliner test flight will send two seasoned astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, into orbit where they’ll connect up with the International Space Station. The plan is to stay aboard the ISS for about a week before returning to Earth, the other crucial part of the test.
“We feel very safe and very comfortable when this spacecraft flies,” Williams said according to a NASA release issued earlier this month. “This is where we’re supposed to be.”
But why did he feel the need to make that clear?
Well, it’s because Boeing’s space wing has been having its own issues for a while now.
It’s been roughly a decade since NASA awarded Boeing a more than $4 billion contract aimed at getting private companies to step in and get astronauts to and from the ISS in the wake of the space shuttle’s 2011 retirement.
NASA also gave SpaceX a more than $2 billion contract for the Commercial Crew project at the same time the Boeing deal was announced. The company completed its first crewed test launch back in November 2020.
Things haven’t moved along as fast, or as smoothly, for Boeing. The first unmanned test in 2019 made it into orbit but was unable to reach the ISS due to a clock malfunction. Then the 2022 unmanned test flight to the ISS went smoothly, although some thrusters failed during that launch.
The crewed test flight was the next big step, one that has been delayed for more than a year now.
Originally scheduled for July 2023, the first planned flight was abruptly called off last June after engineers found a number of problems, including the fact that the company had used hundreds of feet of a flammable adhesive tape on the capsule and discovered issues with Starliner’s parachute system. “Safety is always our top priority and that drives this decision,” Mark Nappi, Boeing vice president and head of the Commercial Crew program, stated of the decision to delay the test last year.
Arguably, those words were more comforting then—before the January incident on Alaska Airlines when a door plug blew out minutes after takeoff.
Since then, whistleblowers have contended the aviation company’s quality control is lacking. Plus, the Federal Aviation Administration has started an audit of Boeing’s production, and the U.S. Department of Justice has announced the opening of a criminal investigation into the Alaska Airlines incident.
In other words, whatever the stakes were for the first crewed Starliner test flight last year, they are exponentially higher now.
And problems just keep cropping up.
“We are to a state now where we are ready to perform the test flight,” Nappa stated ahead of the planned May 7 launch.
They came close that time but scrubbed the launch at the last minute due to a faulty oxygen relief valve on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket beneath the capsule, according to NASA officials.
Then they cancelled the May 17 test days before it was set to go off, this time because of an issue with Starliner’s propulsion system. Specifically, they’ve now discovered a helium leak that needs to be addressed
It’s boggling to realize that SpaceX has conducted nine crewed NASA missions and four private ones. Meanwhile, Boeing is years behind schedule and more than $1.5 billion over budget.
All that said, the crewed Starliner’s launch window is 4:43 EST, May 21. And who knows, it might actually happen this time. Maybe.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
