a change to its commercial crew contract with Boeing<\/a>. The Starliner-1 mission, originally planned as the spacecraft\u2019s first operational crewed flight, will instead carry only cargo. That mission will be followed by three crewed flights, with options for two additional missions.<\/p>\nAt the time of the contract modification, NASA said Starliner-1 could launch as soon as April 2026. At a Feb. 9 briefing on the upcoming Crew-12 launch, however, the agency said it had not set a more specific launch date.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really driven by closing out all the technical work we need to do ahead of that flight,\u201d said Steve Stich, NASA\u2019s commercial crew program manager.<\/p>\n
That work includes addressing helium pressurization system leaks observed on the previous mission, as well as thruster malfunctions. Concerns about thruster performance led NASA to decide to return Starliner uncrewed.<\/p>\n
Stich said engineers have made \u201cgreat progress\u201d in resolving the helium leaks by replacing seals that were vulnerable to degradation in the presence of nitrogen tetroxide vapor in the spacecraft\u2019s propulsion system.<\/p>\n
Testing of the thrusters is continuing, including hot-firing thrusters on the crew module of the Starliner-1 spacecraft and analyzing data from tests of thrusters housed in enclosures known as \u201cdoghouses\u201d on the Starliner service module. Those thrusters experienced malfunctions during the previous flight.<\/p>\n
Engineers are developing a model to predict thruster behavior in the doghouses. \u201cWhen we get through that and get to a point where we\u2019re comfortable predicting thruster performance, then we\u2019ll move forward and look toward a launch date,\u201d Stich said.<\/p>\n
Although Starliner-1 will deliver cargo to the station, it will also serve as a test flight. \u201cThe purpose of Starliner-1 is to validate the changes that we made,\u201d Stich said. If successful, NASA would then fly astronauts on Starliner-2 for a long-duration crew-rotation mission.<\/p>\n
Stich did not offer a more specific launch date for Starliner-1 beyond reiterating a launch no earlier than April. At the briefing, agency officials outlined a busy schedule of upcoming ISS missions, including a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft launch currently planned for early April.<\/p>\n
The timing of Starliner-1 will help determine plans for the crew-rotation mission following Crew-12. Stich said NASA has not yet decided whether that next mission will be another Crew Dragon flight, designated Crew-13, or Starliner-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to work through and get through Starliner-1 in the summer timeframe and see where we\u2019re at,\u201d he said. With Crew-12 scheduled to spend about eight months on the ISS, either Crew-13 or Starliner-2 would launch in the fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have some time to decide,\u201d Stich said, noting that crews are training separately for both Crew-13 and Starliner-2.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 As NASA prepares to launch a new crew to the International Space Station, the agency has…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":580380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[24],"tags":[18819,41755,43821,41756,577,916,159,16988,783,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-580379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-boeing","tag-commercial-crew","tag-crew-dragon","tag-cst-100","tag-iss","tag-nasa","tag-science","tag-sn","tag-space","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116047644376111766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}