Valeria Ordonez Ghio
(CNN) — Astronauts aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft don’t know when they’ll be returning home. They’re more than three weeks into a mission that was projected to last just a few days.
Officials have repeatedly indicated that Starliner, which struggled with helium leaks and propellant outages on its way to the International Space Station in early June, will be safe to bring home astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.
Still, Steve Stich, director of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said Friday that the space agency is considering extending the maximum duration of the Starliner mission from 45 days to 90 days. And there is no firm return date on the horizon.
Two astronauts wait to return home and Boeing struggles to solve spacecraft problems. This is what’s at play
Part of that desired extension is driven by ground testing that Boeing and NASA plan to conduct in New Mexico, seeking to better understand why some of the Starliner’s boosters failed unexpectedly during the first leg of its journey. (Four of the Starliner’s five failed boosters have since been restored; however, one booster is not expected to function for the remainder of the mission.)
“We’re just looking at the timeline to run (the test in New Mexico) and then review the data,” Stich said at a briefing Friday. “And that’s really the most important thing, I would say, is determining the landing date.”
“We are in no hurry to return home,” he added.
Stich and Mark Nappi, vice president and director of Boeing’s commercial crew program, also said Friday that engineers are still unsure of the root cause of the Starliner’s problems.
Part of the goal of conducting ground testing while the vehicle is still in space, Nappi said, is to try to narrow down possible reasons why the thrusters malfunctioned.
“So if (the test in New Mexico) comes back and gives us all the answers, then we can just disengage and go home,” Nappi said. “If you come back and say, ‘Here’s 80% of the answer.’ And if you just run a more coupled hot fire (try on the Starliner in orbit), then you can get 100% of the answers; so we want (Starliner) to be there so we can get that information.”
Meanwhile, Williams and Wilmore have integrated with the rest of the crew currently aboard the International Space Station and are performing routine tasks.
The beginning of a historic flight
Boeing Starliner’s troubles began with its launch aboard an Atlas V rocket on June 5.
The mission team detected a helium leak before launch, but did not consider it threatening enough to abandon liftoff.
When asked about that decision on Friday, Nappi said he “does not regret the decision to jump in and participate in the test flight.”
He added that NASA and Boeing have always emphasized that this mission was a test flight, with the goal of collecting data to improve Starliner’s performance for future missions.
Veteran astronauts aboard historic first crewed Starliner launch
Setbacks in orbit
Several more helium leaks were identified as the craft headed to the International Space Station along with problems with the propellant. The problems occurred in the Starliner’s service module, a cylindrical attachment on the underside of the spacecraft that provides much of the vehicle’s power during flight.
By design, the service module will not survive the trip back to Earth. The module is jettisoned and destroyed when the Starliner spacecraft reenters the atmosphere. That’s why the Boeing and NASA teams opted to leave the Starliner spacecraft safely docked to the space station while they worked to learn as much as possible about those issues.
It is not yet clear whether NASA will extend the maximum mission duration to 90 days. Stich said officials need to clarify the Starliner’s battery life for that purpose, although he noted that the batteries are being recharged on the space station and should perform the same after 90 days as they did during the first 45.
Delays, cost overruns and missed deadlines are common features of the spaceflight industry. But Boeing has faced challenges that have stood out, especially when directly comparing the Starliner program to its competitor: SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
That spacecraft, which is included in NASA’s same Commercial Crew Program for transporting astronauts, completed its first test flight in 2020 and has been flying routine missions ever since.
SpaceX had the advantage of designing the Crew Dragon spacecraft from the back of its Cargo Dragon vehicle, which was used for years to deliver supplies to the International Space Station before its successor took flight.
Boeing, on the other hand, designed Starliner from scratch.
However, overcoming the perception that Boeing has underperformed in this program has been a challenge for the aerospace giant that is already suffering significant reputational setbacks in its airline division.
“We have one really good test flight that has been done so far and it’s looking pretty negative,” Nappi said Friday.
Starliner Credit: Boeing
The history of Boeing
Starliner’s journey toward this historic crewed test mission began in 2014, when NASA turned to Boeing and SpaceX to develop a spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station under what the federal agency called the Commercial Crew Program.
The vehicle has faced years of delays, obstacles and extra expenses that have cost the company more than $1 billion, according to public financial records.
Starliner’s first test mission took place uncrewed in December 2019. Plagued by errors, the test flight ended abruptly when the vehicle failed in orbit. The result was symptomatic of software problems, including a coding error that set an internal clock back by 11 hours.
A second uncrewed flight test in May 2022 uncovered additional software issues and problems with some of the vehicle’s thrusters.
Stich indicated during a June 6 press conference that engineers may not have fully resolved those issues. “We thought we had solved that problem,” he said.
“I think we’re missing something fundamental that’s happening inside the engine,” he added.
That’s the core of the mysteries Boeing and NASA seek to unravel during the Starliner spacecraft’s extended mission.
Long stays in space
It’s not uncommon for astronauts to unexpectedly extend their stay aboard the space station, by days, weeks or even months.
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, for example, was scheduled to spend about six months aboard the International Space Station for its maiden voyage to low-Earth orbit that began in September 2022. Instead, he logged a total of 371 days in space after the discovery of a coolant leak from its parent vehicle, a Russian Soyuz capsule, while docked at the orbiting outpost.
Astronauts also routinely extend their stays on the station by several days due to a variety of factors, including bad weather on Earth or other schedule adjustments.
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