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NASA officials Wednesday, briefed reporters about the status of about the status of Boeing Starliner and how its technical problems may affect the next SpaceX crew flight to the International Space Station(ISS). Five of the spacecraft's 28 reaction control thrusters (RCS) misfired during docking with the ISS on June 6 and it has since faced a lot of difficulties, delaying the return of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
Boeing engineers continue to troubleshoot the apparent failures in the thrusters of Starliner. The descent back to our planet may again overtax the RCS system, some at NASA say. And there's disagreement on the apparent cause of what CFT engineers have said, may be overheating in "doghouse" shelters over clusters of RCS thrusters, which in turn causes thruster insulation to shed.
Additionally to the apparent insulation shedding, a poppet valve in Starliner's thrusters has been "heating up and extruding and [...] contracting" in ground testing, NASA commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said today.
The sticking point is better understanding of if and how the technical difficulties will affect Starliner's undocking and return to Earth.
The astronauts have now been in space for over 60 days, overstaying the scheduled 10-day Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission.
"We're in a kind of a new situation here, in that we've got multiple options," astronaut and associate administrator for NASA's space operations mission directorate, Ken Bowersox said during the briefing. "We don't just have to bring a crew back on Starliner, for example. We could bring them back on another vehicle." SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft may come to the rescue.
NASA revealed yesterday, it will delay the Elon Musk company's ninth operational flight Crew-9, to the ISS. Crew Dragon which is designed for four astronauts, will now launch Sept. 24 instead of Aug. 18. This is to accommodate a potential plan to send only two astronauts up on Crew-9, and bring back the Starliner astronauts with the two returning crew in February 2025.
Crew-9 is supposed to launch to the space station with NASA's Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, Stephanie Wilson and Russia space agency's Alexsandr Gorbunov. NASA is still mulling over program-level staffing decisions if two members of the crew is dropped. "We're not ready to share specific crew names for the contingency plan," ISS program manager Dana Weigel said.
The SpaceX Dragon could launch with two astronauts and two seats filled with mass simulators to account for the empty seats. The spacecraft would stay docked to ISS for a normal six-month mission, with Williams and Wilmore returning early next year in the two leftover seats.
Weigel emphasized the CFT astronauts are "fully trained" for a normal ISS rotation, and that was planned two years ago knowing a developmental flight may very well extend for months. NASA even has appropriately sized spacesuits on board for the CFT astronauts, in case a need for extravehicular activity arises. The ISS also has a four-month contingency of supplies that the CFT astronauts have been using for matters such as food and oxygen.
The decision for Starliner's flight rationale would go to Bowersox, whose authority is delegated to by NASA administrator Bill Nelson.
"The administrator ultimately takes responsibility and and has a very important concern and responsibility for the final decision," Bowersox said. Notably, Nelson was on the last space shuttle flight 10 days before the fatal Challenger launch in 1986, and has spoken openly about the devastating effect that had on him.
Starliner will have to undock at some point, whether crewed or uncrewed, to make way for Crew-9 at the ISS Harmony module. Crew-8 will stay on board a little longer as it is expected to leave about a week past Crew-9's arrival, whenever that happens. SpaceX will also be delaying its 31st Cargo Dragon to the ISS to no earlier than mid-October.
SpaceX and Boeing are the two commercial crew providers for NASA, tasked in 2014 with sending astronauts regularly to the ISS after the space shuttle's retirement in 2011. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft stepped into the launching gap for ISS missions until SpaceX sent its first astronaut test mission to space successfully in 2020.