NASA, Boeing delay Starliner astronaut landing to June 26 amid thruster issues

The return to Earth of Boeing's Starliner capsule will be delayed a few more days due to thruster troubleshooting and a scheduled spacewalk. no earlier than June 26, nearly three weeks after it launched. Landing that day is scheduled to occur at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 4:51 a.m. EDT . We'll carry it live here at Space.com, via NASA Television.

Thruster glitches and helium leaks can't stop Boeing's Starliner astronaut test flight — but why are they happening? CFT's docking was a bit more complex than the only other time Starliner approached the ISS, which was done during an uncrewed test flight in May 2022. That uncrewed mission, called Orbital Flight Test 2 , also faced thruster issues that interfered with docking.

The helium leak on the launch pad was not an immediate safety issue, but in investigating it further, NASA and Boeing uncovered a design vulnerability in the RCS system that could affect Starliner's reentry. Agency officials subsequently certified a new reentry mode after testing the idea on the ground in simulations with the CFT crew, veteran NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Suni Williams, both of whom are former U.S. Navy test pilots.

Although evaluation of what is happening continues, he said the tone of the conversation has changed."I think now we're doing the normal business we do of, What are the contingencies that could happen the undock timeframe? And when we get to these, how we manage each of those contingencies, should something happen, and then look at the procedures we have in place. Are we ready to execute those?"" issue during suit-up.

"This is an opportunity to fully understand the system's performance and without the pressure of schedule or time," Nappi said. Aside from the technical issues, the mission has satisfied 77 of the original 87 flight test objectives, he noted; the remaining 10 will be evaluated during undocking and landing.

Source: Education Headlines (educationheadlines.net)

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