With an original planned mission duration of around a week, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has now been in space for over two months. However, based on recent comments from the agency and Boeing, this could end up being just the beginning. In a new media teleconference held earlier today, NASA revealed that the agency is currently having disagreements regarding whether or not Starliner should be used to return Butch and Suni, the crew of two the vehicle launched for the first time in early June.
On one hand, Boeing seems confident the vehicle is fine and capable of the return trip while some at NASA think they should consider using SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft to return the crew instead. Here I will go more in-depth into some of the highlights of the over-hour-long teleconference, what switching to Dragon would mean, upcoming milestones, and more.
Internal Disagreements
After launching on June 5th, Starliner experienced a number of issues including multiple helium leaks and thruster failures. They managed to successfully dock, however, it became clear early in the mission that quite a bit of testing would be needed prior to undocking for multiple reasons. Not only to ensure the vehicle is safe, but also to try and figure out what went wrong to prevent it on future missions. Now over two months in, the focus seems to have shifted almost fully toward whether or not they should return crew on this vehicle.
At the start of the teleconference Steve Stich, the manager of the Commercial Crew Program at NASA went over some of the testing and conclusions they’ve come to over the past few weeks. Here he was quoted saying, “There’s really two key things that we think are happening. One when the thrsuter gets really hot the propellant can vaporize, that’s where we saw the really low thrust readings on docking day. And then as the poppets swell we can get some blockage there based on what we learned from White Sands” he said. For reference, White Sands is the location where teams have been completing ground testing to try and replicate the anomalies happening with Starliner.
He went on to say, “What we’re trying to do now is sorta understand what all that data means to us from the White Sands testing and then what it means to the thrusters on orbit. We’re trying to understand a little bit more about the condition that caused the thruster fail-offs, it’s not always at the same temperature, it’s not always at the same number of pulses and so we’re trying to understand that. We are doing modeling on the ground to try and understand how this Teflon could extrude what the forces are on the Teflon, and then trying to understand how it could contract over time” he said.
He then began talking about backup plans and the agency’s goal going forward. Here he said, “We have tried to buy ourselves a little bit of time to work various options for return. And so recently this week at the Program Control Board we approved moving the Crew 9 mission to no earlier than September 24th. This news was originally announced yesterday on the 6th in conjunction with a NASA statement where they said, “This adjustment allows more time for mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test currently docked to the orbiting laboratory. Starliner ground teams are taking their time to analyze the results of recent docked hot-fire testing, finalize flight rationale for the spacecraft’s integrated propulsion system, and confirm system reliability ahead of Starliner’s return to Earth. NASA and Boeing continue to evaluate the spacecraft’s readiness, and no decisions have been made regarding Starliner’s return.” In other words, the agency is delaying a scheduled SpaceX Dragon crew launch in order to provide them with the option of instead using that spacecraft to bring the Starliner astronauts back in the future. They also confirmed that they have been working with SpaceX to make sure they’re ready to bring back Butch and Suni if needed.
Besides the delay, if they do decide to use SpaceX and Dragon instead of Starliner, they would remove two crew members and only launch two astronauts rather than four. In that instance, Butch and Suni would join at the ISS and 4 would return on the spacecraft. Interstingly, during the teleconference, Stich confirmed that this contingency plan would result in the Dragon spacecraft and crew returning in February 2025. That would mean an additional 7 or so months of time in Space for Butch and Suni. Or a total mission duration of around 8 or more months, on a mission that was originally set to last about a week.
In regard to this plan, Stich said, “Now we haven’t approved this plan, in other words, we’ve done all the work to make sure this plan is there. we have the suits identified to fly up on Crew 9, we have the seats set up so we can fly a complement of multiple people. But we have not turned that on formally as that’s the path that we’re gonna go down. But we wanted to make sure we had all that flexibility in place” he said.
On the flip side of all of this, Boeing continues to remain confident and adamant about using Starliner to return the crew. Only a few days ago on the 2nd, the company released a mission update titled, “Boeing’s confidence remains high in Starliner’s return with crew.” Here they outlined all the testing they had completed which they believe proves the vehicle can safely return Butch and Suni. They were quoted saying, “Boeing remains confident in the Starliner spacecraft and its ability to return safely with crew. We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities. Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA. The testing has confirmed 27 of 28 RCS thrusters are healthy and back to full operational capability. Starliner’s propulsion system also maintains redundancy and the helium levels remain stable. The data also supports root cause assessments for the helium and thruster issues and flight rationale for Starliner and its crew’s return to Earth” they said.
This brings us up to date and to where some of the disagreements begin to arise. To put it plainly, some at NASA do not agree with Boeing. For example, later in the teleconference, Ken Bowersox, the associate administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA talked about the Program Control Board and some of the opinions that were shared. Specifically, when asked about Starliner’s concerns relative to the board he said, “And just to give you a feel, we don’t really count, we don’t vote, and we don’t go through and do some type of percentage as part of our process. Just one disagreeing voice can be enough to sway the hole team to move a different direction. But I’d say we heard a lot of folks who had concern and the decision was not clear. We heard enough voices that the decision was not clear at the decision control board” he said. When he mentions the decision, he’s referring to the decision to bring Butch and Suni back on Starliner. As of right now, despite all the testing and Boeing’s confidence, there are a number of people at NASA who believe there is no point to take the risk, especially considering they have a proven alternative with Dragon ready.
This is the current state of debate and decision going on with both NASA, Boeing, Starliner, etc. In just the last week, teams were taking their time to analyze the results of a docked hot-fire testing, finalizing flight rationale for the spacecraft’s integrated propulsion system, and confirming system reliability. At the time they mentioned that forward work for the team also includes finalizing the spacecraft’s undocking procedures and operational mitigations that could be used in flight, if needed, to build further confidence in the system. They said in a statement, “As always, astronaut safety remains the top priority for both NASA and Boeing. While engineers conduct their spacecraft studies on Earth, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are closely following the ground team’s progress while aboard the station. The duo has integrated into the daily workload of the orbiting laboratory, giving the station a crew of nine as their mission overlaps with Expedition 71.”
Late last month, they completed a hot fire test of the Starliner spacecraft’s reaction control system jets to evaluate the spacecraft’s propulsion system. Suni and Butch were seated inside the docked spacecraft during the test as part of preparations before their return aboard Starliner from the International Space Station. The test involved firing 27 of the spacecraft’s 28 jets for short bursts, moving through them one at a time to check thruster performance and helium leak rates. As part of the test configuration, all helium manifolds, which control and direct the flow of helium, were opened allowing engineers to continue evaluation of Starliner’s helium supply and leak rates. The teams verified Starliner continues to show the margin needed to support a return trip from the station. Following the test, the helium manifolds were closed and will remain closed until Starliner activates its propulsion system ahead of undocking. Teams also will verify the helium leak rate before Starliner undocks. Even with all this testing, it may not be enough to convince those involved that they shouldn’t just use Dragon instead. Something we will hear more about in the coming weeks.
Conclusion
Starliner has now been in Space for around 2 months and could stay there much longer. Boeing is confident that it’s safe and ready to return while some at NASA think it’s not worth the risk when another vehicle is ready. If they do go with Dragon, the crew won’t return until early 2025. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.