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Boeing has been trying to launch its Starliner spacecraft for a few years, but a series of incidents prevent it from leaving Earth. It’s been six weeks since the company reluctantly unstacked the Starliner and returned it to the factory for inspection, and engineers are still wondering about the ship’s sticky valves. With no launch date in sight, Boeing’s next attempt to send Starliner into space is unlikely to come until 2022, reports Ars Technica.
The CST-100 Starliner is one of two spacecraft funded by NASA under the Commercial Crew program. The other, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, has been transporting astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for over a year. Boeing clung to the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) in late 2019. After experiencing several system failures, Starliner failed to reach the ISS. Since then, the company has been trying to get the overhaul, known as OFT-2, off the ground.
In August, Starliner was on the launch pad atop an Atlas V rocket. However, OFT-2 was again delayed due to 13 stuck oxidant valves in the propulsion system. The valves were found in the main engines (OMAC) and reaction control systems (RCS), and they are critical to cranking and emergency shutdown operations. Engineers were unable to repair the valves on the launch pad, so Boeing sent the spacecraft to the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) located near the Kennedy Space Center.
The CST-100 can carry up to seven passengers to and from the ISS. In theory.
According to Kathy Lueders, chief of human space flight operations at NASA, engineers have collected data on the “dry” side of the valves. The hope is that the team will be able to determine the cause and find a solution to the stuck valves in this limited perspective. However, it may become necessary to look at the internal or “wet” side of the valves, which will involve going through the tedious process of disassembling the propulsion system.
Even if Boeing solved the case tomorrow, it wouldn’t be able to get back to the launch pad just yet. There are only a limited number of docking ports on the ISS which are shared between the Dragon Cargo, Crew Dragon, and Soyuz spacecraft. There will be room in October, as well as the second half of November, but it seems more likely that OFT-2 won’t happen until 2022. Assuming the unmanned flight is successful, Boeing will be ready for the first demonstration flight with a crew. later in 2022.
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