After Years of Trouble, Boeing Repeats Launch of Starliner Spacecraft for NASA

Those problems put a hold on what would have been the next step: a demonstration flight with astronauts aboard. NASA told Boeing that it needed to repeat the uncrewed test flight, at Boeing’s cost.

Boeing spent more than a year revamping and retesting the software, and in August last year, Starliner was back at the launching pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, on top of a second Atlas 5 rocket.

The countdown started, but had to be halted. Flight managers discovered that 13 valves in Starliner’s propulsion system had failed to open.

Boeing then spent about eight months investigating the corrosion that had caused the valves to stick shut. Boeing swapped out the service module — the piece of Starliner below the capsule that houses the propulsion system — with one that had been planned for the next mission.

NASA hired two companies to take astronauts to and from the station: SpaceX and Boeing. At the time of Boeing’s test flight in 2019, it seemed that Starliner would beat out SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule for the first mission with astronauts.

But with Starliner remaining on the ground, SpaceX has since launched seven Crew Dragon missions with astronauts. In addition to the five missions for NASA, two others carried private citizens to orbit.

SpaceX’s missions also appear to be significantly less expensive than Boeing’s. Still, NASA officials say that they are committed to Starliner and that having two systems provides competition, innovation and flexibility.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/science/nasa-boeing-starliner-launch.html