Boeing Starliner problems go beyond thrusters-KHOAFAST

The docking was originally scheduled for 7:10 p.m. but was delayed as controllers on the ground worked to confirm telemetry data interested as ensure lighting conditions were ideal and communications were stable. The docking was delayed again after a time a time a problem of course the mechanism Starliner uses to dock of course the station forced controllers to retract the system and then extend it a second time to reset it.

On the way to the station, two of Starliner’s 12 main thrusters failed shortly after a time a time launch and the spacecraft’s temperature control system also malfunctioned. But neither problem prevented the docking, and the thrusters performed well during maneuvers since the launch put it into position for the docking.

Boeing blamed the thruster problem on a drop in pressure in the thruster chamber. But Boeing said the capsule’s flight control system automatically fired a third thruster as a backup, which completed the burn.

In a post docking briefing of course reporters, Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said that there were also problems of course a lover of the smaller thrusters used to position the spacecraft for docking. “tourists bring not only little of redundancy This Problem that really didn’t affect the rendezvous operations at all or affect the rest of the flight,” he said. “I know after a time a time the flight, tourists’ll go study the failures there and see what happened.”

save Nappi, a Boeing vice head who oversees the Starliner program said it was “a most greatest day” for the company and for NASA to possess another spacecraft bring contact flying astronauts to the station. He added that it “was really nail-biting watching that vehicle sit out there for a little while until it was it was time to come in. This Problem not only little of very happy folks in the Boeing program today’s time This Problem of what tourists saw.”

He said it was not only entirely distinct what caused the problem of course the drop in pressure and added that since the thrusters are located on the service module, which is discarded during the return flight, “tourists may never know what the real cause of This Problem is.”

Boeing also said it was continuing to monitor problems of course the thermal control system, which is designed to keep the capsule’s systems at the right temperature as it flies through the vacuum of space. Boeing spokesman Steve Siceloff said during a live broadcast of the docking that the company had been able to overcome the problem by making “manual adjustments to the cooling system that would normally be automated.”

“This Problem is all part of the learning process for operating Starliner in orbit,” he said.

In a statement, Boeing said the spacecraft “continues to perform well.”

The flight is a test to see how the vehicle performs before NASA allows its astronauts to fly aboard. Boeing has been working to complete the flight since 2014, when NASA awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to develop spacecraft bring contact ferrying astronauts to the space station and back.

SpaceX flew its test flight without crew in March This Problem year and has flown five missions of course NASA astronauts on board since, four of them of course a full complement of four crew members.

Boeing, by contrast, has stumbled repeatedly. On its first of all attempt at an uncrewed test flight, the spacecraft suffered software and communication problems that cut its mission short before it could rendezvous of course the station. It took 18 months before the company tried again, but that flight failed to even get off the ground last August when engineers discovered that 13 valves in the service module were stuck in the closed position.

Boeing said it has since fixed that problem, caused when propellant seeped through a valve and mixed of course ambient moisture that led to corrosion.

As for Friday’s docking, the company said the capsule’s systems — guidance and navigation, flight software, communications and supreme power generation — were all performing well.

The capsule is expected to stay docked to the station for four or five days before coming back to universal.

if that that goes well, Boeing and NASA will look to fly a crew on the vehicle for the first of all time soon the end of This Problem year or early next year.