About five weeks have passed since Boeing updated the status of its Starliner spacecraft, and the company said it was “evaluating” a new target date for its next mission. This test flight of Starliner, which will not transport crew, is destined to launch on an Atlas V rocket for about a week and dock with the International Space Station before returning to Earth.
Despite the lack of an official update, it now appears likely that Boeing and NASA will target this test flight in late July or early August. This is mainly due to traffic at the International Space Station rather than the readiness of Starliner itself. Two NASA sources said the vehicle was ‘near’ to be ready, with only a few small tests to get the spacecraft certified for the flight. Therefore, Starliner is expected to be ready to fly by early summer.
Traffic congestion
The main problem is the availability of docking ports for space stations with an ‘international docking adapter’, used by SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, Cargo Dragon 2 and Starliner vehicles. There are currently two such ports on the station, and for NASA, the priority for access to these ports is crew rotations, followed by supply missions. The question then becomes when the Starliner test flight can find an open lock on the station.
The Crew-2 mission, featuring four astronauts on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle, is expected to launch on April 22 and remain connected to one of these ports for approximately six months. On June 3, a SpaceX cargo supply mission (CRS-22) is to launch and occupy the other port.
So there will be no landing gates available this summer until about July 20, the estimated date on which the CRS-22 Dragon will leave the station and return to Earth. This room opens a window of about one month during which Starliner can undertake its test flight. Although NASA and Boeing have not yet announced a target date, we can expect this flight to take place no earlier than the end of July or early August.
Starliner is likely to stay at the station for about a week – depending on the needs of the International Space Station program – before landing in the southwestern United States. The next Dragon mission, CRS-23, is expected to arrive at the end of August, after which Starliner will depart.
The upcoming Starliner test flight will be the second flight of the vehicle, which was essential after a problematic test mission in December 2019. During the flight, several software problems caused the spacecraft to be almost lost minutes after launch, and then again shortly before it had to take place. to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere. NASA declared the crash a “good visibility near call”. As a result, Boeing agreed to conduct a second crew test flight after a careful review of the vehicle’s flight software.
When crew?
Following this repeated test flight, officially known as the Orbital Flight Test-2, NASA and Boeing will conduct a detailed data analysis. One source said that this process would take optimally, about six months. This would increase a crew test flight until January 2022. Another NASA official said the spacecraft would not fly until the hardware was ready and that it made the most sense to fly based on the station’s needs. He added that there is no clock on this crew test, as NASA already has an operational vehicle, the Crew Dragon, to meet its spaceflight needs.
One source expressed ‘hope’ that a launch date for 2021 could be found for Starliner’s crew test flight, but more realistically, the mission will expire in 2022. Although space stations are available for space stations in November, there are currently no slots in December. . A source with knowledge of flight schedules for space stations suggested that the best opportunity for Starliner’s crew test, under the command of astronaut Butch Wilmore, would probably be in February 2022. At that time, there would be an open plant gate to the station for the time being. This slot would also provide about seven months to review data from Orbital Flight Test-2 and clear people to fly on Starliner.
Finally, if this crew test flight is successful, Boeing could fly its first “operational” Starliner mission for NASA. This would take a full number of four astronauts to the space station for about six months and would happen later in 2022, probably during the April or September time frames.