Fire tests of the engines of the jet control system of the ship Starliner, conducted at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, have been completed. NASA and Boeing’s engineers have begun analysing the results. The date of the return of Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams from the ISS to Earth has not yet been reported, but the agency says that the astronauts will fly home on the Starliner. At the same time, some observers have drawn attention to NASA’s new contract with SpaceX – it involves theorising an emergency launch of the Crew Dragon spacecraft in the event of an extreme situation.
During ground tests, engineers tried to recreate the malfunctions that occurred on Starliner during its flight and docking with the ISS on 7 June. For example, five of its 28 orientation system micromotors began overheating and losing thrust. As a result, the ship’s control system issued a ban on their inclusion. Four engines then managed to bring back to life, but they worked “not with full efficiency”.
One such engine was tested at the White Sands Test Site under conditions similar to those experienced during the ship’s flight to the station. Ground tests also included engine runs in conditions of high load and emergency triggers, recreating the environment in which Starliner will operate from the moment of undocking from the station to deorbit. The test results will be evaluated over a week, NASA specified.
“I am extremely proud of the NASA and Boeing team for their hard work in conducting a very challenging series of tests. We collected an incredible amount of data on the engine that could help us better understand what happens to it in flight. Next, our team began disassembling and inspecting the engine, which will give us additional information about the condition of its components as we analyse the results and evaluate the next steps,” said NASA Commercial Manned Flight Program Manager Steve Stich.
A team of NASA and Boeing specialists will also conduct an in-depth analysis of Starliner’s readiness to return to Earth – in particular, the evaluation of data related to the operation of its propulsion systems. However, the date of the analysis has not yet been determined. The leadership of NASA and Boeing promised to discuss in detail the results of ground tests and readiness analyses at a briefing to be held next week.
Judging by the message NASA, the agency and the company-developer still expect to return astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams on board the “Starliner”. Involve for this purpose ship Crew Dragon from the rival SpaceX is not planned, although “purely theoretically” such a possibility is being studied.
A few days ago, on 15 July, NASA signed a new contract with SpaceX for the amount of about $267 thousand to study the possibilities of responding to emergencies – in other words, how quickly the company will be able to launch Crew Dragon if necessary. That said, there is no information in the document indicating that the contract has anything to do with the Starliner situation. However, some analysts are convinced that the return of astronauts on the Crew Dragon may well become a working project if Starliner still will not be able to leave the station in time.
In mid-August, the next Crew Dragon spacecraft with the Crew-9 crew, which includes three NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, is due to dock at the ISS. By the time they arrive, the Starliner should have cleared the port and left the station. If that doesn’t happen, there is a backup option in which the Crew-8 crew will return to Earth first.
