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The Boeing Starliner crew module is preparing for the next orbital flight test in 2021.
Boeing
SpaceX and its Crew Dragon spacecraft have been a bright spot in NASA’s commercial crew program, which returned astronaut launches to US soil in 2020. Boeing, the other supplier of commercial crews, still has work to do before transport a NASA crew to the International Space Station.
On Monday, NASA announced a new target date of March 25 to launch the second unmanned test flight of the Boeing Starliner. Last fall, NASA aimed for March 29, so the new date pushes the target back a few days. The mission is called Orbital Flight Test-2 or OFT-2.
Developing a spacecraft is a challenge, and obstacles and delays are an integral part of the process.
The first major flight test of the CST-100 Starliner at the end of 2019 did not go as planned. the the spacecraft failed to reach the ISS, but he returned to Earth safely. A investigation revealed software flaws and a communication link problem. Boeing has promised to conduct a second orbital flight test to prove the safety of the spacecraft before it carries humans on board.
Boeing worked to resolve the issues with the first flight test. “The teams performed a comprehensive software review and several rounds of tests to verify that Starliner’s software meets design specifications,” NASA said in a statement. Boeing will also perform a full simulation of the test flight before launch.
If the OFT-2 is successful, NASA and Boeing will look to launch a full crew on the ISS later in 2021. This would put SpaceX and Boeing in business as ISS flight providers. This is the ultimate goal of a NASA program that has already ended the United States’ dependence on Russian spacecraft to transport astronauts to the space station.
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