Boeing is now planning to launch its second uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in early December, the company announced on Friday (August 28).
The mission, dubbed the Birtal Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), will be Boeing’s second attempt to launch its new astronaut taxi on the International Space Station, which, after a partial failure, prevented the Starliner spacecraft from reaching the station during the Lin Fati-1 mission. In December 2019.
Once the company demonstrates that the new spacecraft can carry astronauts to and from the space station safely, it could begin sending astronauts to the orbit laboratory in early June 2021, NASA officials said in a statement.
Related: Boeing’s first Starliner flight test in the photo
The Starliner’s first crew mission, known as the Crew Flight Test, will send NASA astronauts Mike Fink and Nicole Mann and Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson to the space station. If that crew test flight is successful, Boeing could begin flying the operational crew mission as early as December 2021, NASA added in a statement.
Boeing’s first operational crew flight, called the Starliner 1, will bring NASA astronauts Janet Apps, Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada to the space station. All Starliner missions will begin on the United Alliance Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Boeing and NASA originally planned to fly Starliner’s crew flight test mission in mid-2020, but the mission was delayed after Boeing decided to conduct orbital flight tests again. During its first test flight in December 2019, a series of technical problems caused the Starliner spacecraft to be trapped in the wrong orbit and unable to reach the space station. So, instead of docking with the orbit lab, the Starliner returned to Earth after only two days in space.
Following a problematic test flight, NASA and Boeing formed an independent review team to investigate the cause of the OFT-1’s partial failure. That investigation, which wrapped up in July, found that two major software software errors and a temporary drop in communication during the test flight were primarily responsible for the partial failure, and investigators identified the bowling as “80 corrective actions” to address before the next Starliner. Mission. Boeing has completed about 75% of the work so far, NASA said in a statement.
While the Starliner spacecraft is designed for reuse, Boeing will use a new Starliner for the F-2 mission. The new capsule will provide additional on-orbit experience for pre-operational teams flying with astronauts, NASA said in a statement. The Cal Fatty-1 Starliner capsule, nicknamed “kyp Lipso”, will again fly on the Starliner 1 mission.
Boeing has spent this summer assembling a new Starliner capsule for the OFT-2 and is currently adding some final touches before the spacecraft is ready to fly. Meanwhile, Boeing’s software software team in Houston is finalizing changes to Starliner’s flight codes that were recommended by an independent review team. The software team is currently preparing for a fully integrated, end-to-end rehearsal test with the Starliner and Atlas V Rocket – a test that Boeing was criticized for ignoring before the problematic Close-1 mission.
While Boeing is still working to show that its new astronaut taxi crew can move safely to the space station, SpaceX is preparing its first operational crew, the Dragon Mission Crew-1, following the company’s successful Demo-2 mission. , Which sent NASA astronauts Bob Behanken and Doug Hurley to the space station in May.
After the space shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA contracted both SpaceX and Boeing to launch astronauts from U.S. soil, reducing NASA’s reliance on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to get astronauts to space.
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