On June 5, 2024, an Atlas V rocket launched Boeing's Starliner capsule on its first crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS). This critical test flight carried two of NASA’s most seasoned astronauts, Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams.¹

Off to a shaky start

In late May 2024, the mission faced launch delays due to technical problems. United Launch Alliance (ULA) addressed a malfunctioning valve in its Atlas V rocket intended to carry Starliner into space. At the same time, Boeing discovered² a helium leak in one of the 28 reaction control system (RCS) thrusters on Starliner’s service module. Boeing convinced NASA that the leak did not pose an unacceptable risk to the mission and that the launch could happen.³

A botched mission

Once in space, engineers detected additional helium leaks in the Starliner service module’s RCS thruster system, bringing the total number of helium leaks to five.⁴ On top of the helium leaks, Starliner experienced other on-orbit propulsion anomalies, with five of the 28 service module’s RCS thrusters failing at various times as the spacecraft prepared to dock with the ISS. Eventually, engineers reset and restarted four of the five malfunctioning thrusters. With all but one of the service module’s RCS thrusters operational, NASA approved for Starliner to dock with the ISS on June 6, a little more than a day after launching into space.⁵ In the history of the ISS, which is now more than a quarter of a century old, it was for the first time that three different crewed vehicles, Starliner, SpaceX's Dragon and Russia's Soyuz, were all simultaneously docked at the station.

Once Starliner docked with the station, engineers closed off the valves to the helium tanks, preventing further leaks. NASA and Boeing attempted to isolate, replicate, and understand the issues affecting the thruster system by conducting ground testing with an RCS thruster at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility.⁶ Multiple technical problems kept stretching the eight-day mission, with no return date in sight. The drama continued for several weeks. Finally, NASA decided⁷ that the spacecraft could not be trusted to carry Williams and Wilmore home safely and had to fly it back to Earth minus the crew, on September 6, 2024. Even the undocking from the ISS wasn’t without problems. On September 7, the uncrewed Starliner touched down at White Sands Space Harbour in New Mexico.⁸ NASA further announced that Wilmore and Willams will return in February 2025 aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, Boeing’s younger rival. Thus, what was meant to be an eight-day mission will likely turn into an eight-month odyssey.⁹ This is a huge setback for Boeing, a NASA prime at the forefront of the American human spaceflight program for several decades.

Building redundancy

In 2014, through its Commercial Crew Program (CCP), NASA chose Boeing and SpaceX to build spacecraft to ferry crews to and from the ISS. The first flights were intended to take place in 2017. The total amount of the contract was $6.8 billion, but as the legacy company of the pair, Boeing got the lion’s share at $4.2 billion.

After the American Shuttle fleet retired in 2011, NASA had to rely on the Russian Soyuz to ferry its astronauts to the ISS. NASA hoped to end its dependency on the Soyuz by 2017.¹⁰

Both SpaceX and Boeing failed to meet the 2017 target. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon missed the mark by three years. It managed to fly its first crew to the ISS on May 30, 2020. By the time Starliner conducted its crewed debut in June this year, SpaceX had launched 50 astronauts, cosmonauts and civilians into orbit in 13 piloted Crew Dragon flights since May 2020.¹¹

A bedevilled spacecraft

The Starliner crewed mission debacle is the second tragedy for Boeing this year. Boeing’s commercial aeroplane business has already been facing scrutiny over its safety and reliability after a door panel blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 aircraft mid-flight in January 2024, leaving a gaping hole on the side of the plane.¹²

The uncrewed missions of the Starliner were similarly beset with problems. In December 2019, Boeing tottered in its first uncrewed test. It got Starliner to Earth orbit but failed to dock with the ISS after a faulty mission clock caused the spacecraft to burn its thrusters for too long, exhausting too much fuel. Other problems included orbital insertion delay, abnormal orbit and software glitches. The flight plan was edited, and the mission was reduced from eight to three days. Thankfully, the second uncrewed flight of the Starliner in 2022 turned out okay.

Starliner Design Highlights

Boeing’s Starliner has more than 425 suppliers in 37 states across the United States.

Here are some of the design highlights of the Starliner spacecraft¹³:

• It is a fully autonomous spacecraft with manual control options.
• It has a weldless structure that eliminates the structural risks of traditional welds and reduces mass and production time.
• It features wireless internet and digital crew interfaces.
• It is designed to accommodate seven passengers or a mix of crew and cargo for missions to low-Earth orbit (LEO).
• For NASA service missions to the ISS, it can carry up to four crew members and cargo.
• It is designed to be reusable up to 10 times with a six-month turnaround time.

Starliner Launch Complex

Starliner’s crew access tower is the first new access tower to be built along Florida's Space Coast since the Apollo era. The crew access arm and white room, which are about 169 feet (51.5 metres) above the launch pad surface of Space Launch Complex 41, are where crews board the Starliner before launch. The pusher abort system provides safe crew escape throughout the launch and ascent phase of the mission.

Space Launch Complex 41 has been used only for non-crew spacecraft in the past. It hosted Titan rockets starting in 1965, and then Atlas V rockets since 2002. Noteworthy NASA missions launched from this launch pad include the Viking robots that landed on Mars, the Voyager spacecraft that toured the outer planets, the New Horizons probe that flew past Pluto, and the Curiosity rover that is still active on Mars since its landing in 2012.

An uncertain future

Seven years behind schedule and more than a billion dollars over budget, the teetering Starliner is back in the dock. A few days after its arrival at the station, NASA announced that SpaceX had been selected to develop and deliver the deorbit vehicle that will help deorbit and retire the ISS in 2030. The multi-billion dollar question now facing Starliner is whether it has a future at all.

References

^1.https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/liftoff-nasa-astronauts-pilot-first-starliner-crewed-test-to-station/
^2.https://starlinerupdates.com/nasas-boeing-crew-flight-test-eyes-next-launch-opportunity/
^3. https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-hasnt-starliner-returned
^4. https://starlinerupdates.com/nasa-boeing-progress-on-testing-starliner-with-crew-at-space-station/
^5. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/after-a-drama-filled-day-boeings-starliner-finally-finds-its-way/
^6. https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-hasnt-starliner-returned
^7. https://time.com/7014400/nasa-decision-stranded-astronauts-february-home-date/
^8. https://blogs.nasa.gov/boeing-crew-flight-test/category/boeing/
^9. https://time.com/7019344/is-there-a-future-for-boeing-starliner/
^10. https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-chooses-american-companies-to-transport-u-s-astronauts-to-international-space-station/
^11. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/long-delayed-boeing-starliner-ready-first-piloted-flight-international-space-station/
^12. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesfarrell/2024/04/04/boeing-pays-alaska-airlines-160-million-after-door-blowout-incident/
^13. https://www.boeing.com/space/starliner#overview

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