Starliner’s New Delay In Returning To Earth Prompts Speculation Of Space Malfunction

Boeing’s Starliner continues to raise concerns. The test mission to demonstrate the safety of this crew capsule began on June 5 and should have lasted about a week. "Should" is the operating word here. On June 9 , NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams found out that they were staying until June 18 to have more time to check out Starliner’s systems.

The extended stay was then extended again for a couple of times and now the two veteran astronauts won’t be back on Earth at least before June 26. A press conference detailed the main reason it was postponed and some of the troubles the spacecraft has faced.

“We want to give our teams a little bit more time to look at the data, do some analysis and make sure they’re really ready to come home,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said during the press briefing .

Delays seem to be a theme for this vehicle . The original plan saw the first crewed test in 2017 but it was postponed time and time again. Eventually the launch was moved to August 2023, and then to May 2024. This was necessary to resolve issues with the parachute system and wiring harnesses among other less significant issues. But it did not launch in May.

On May 6 launch was scrubbed two hours before liftoff. It continued to be delayed due to a helium leak in the service module. Another attempt was planned for Saturday, June 1. The scrubbing took place just 3 minutes and 50 seconds before launch after a faulty power supply caused a computer to register a loss of redundancy. The helium leaks have continued even in space. There is still ten times as much helium as needed for the return journey, but they are certainly an area of concern.

“This is a test flight and we’re going to learn some things,” Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of the Commercial Crew Program at Boeing, said during the press briefing. “So here we are, we’ve learned that our helium system is not performing as designed, albeit manageable, it’s still not working like we had designed it, so we got to go figure that out.”

There was also a problem with the aft thrusters when the spacecraft docked, with five of them malfunctioning. Four of those have now been recovered. The more complex docking leads to a bit of extra heating on the whole system.

The data collected continued to be analyzed and tests continued to be performed. All going well, Wilmore and Williams will undock on June 25 , to come back to Earth the day after.