“It fits the overall narrative of Boeing getting lost,” McDowell says.
Starliner, like Crew Dragon, is a capsule-shaped spacecraft reminiscent of the senior Apollo missions. The craft, which can accommodate up to seven astronauts, is largely autonomous and only requires major input in an emergency. During a test mission starting tonight, Wilmore and Williams will test this eventuality by intentionally pushing the spacecraft off course to ensure they manually bring it back on course, as well as assessing the spacecraft’s overall life support and navigation systems. Once docked with the space station, the vehicle will undergo further tests, including exercises using it as a lifeboat in the event that astronauts need to evacuate from the ISS.
The Starliner is a reusable plane, and Boeing says it can fly a maximum of 10 missions. The spacecraft has no toilet – unlike Crew Dragon – and has about the same usable space as an SUV, making it relatively comfortable to get to orbit and back. It has physical controls and switches that allow astronauts to control the spacecraft, unlike the touchscreens used on Crew Dragon. Once home, the heat shield protects passengers from temperatures reaching approximately 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit before the vehicle descends under a parachute and ultimately lands, with the lend a hand of fall-absorbing airbags, at one of several U.S. desert airstrips. US.
Boeing has a contract with NASA to launch the Starliner to the ISS for six months after this test mission, each time with four or five astronauts and cargo for a six-month stay aboard the station. The probe will alternate missions with Crew Dragon, with one launching around February and the other around August each year. Such redundancy is extremely beneficial, says Steven Siceloff, public affairs specialist at the Space Center. Kennedy at NASA. “This way, if one vehicle develops a technical problem, it doesn’t mean the space station will be alone for a while,” he says. “It means there are alternatives.”
Laura Forczyk, founder of space consulting firm Astralytical, notes that the layoffs are “particularly important now because of Russia’s unreliability.” NASA and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos continue their cooperation on the ISS program, which includes swapping seats between Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, Crew Dragon and now Starliner, despite the acrimonious political situation between the two nations.
However, beyond these six missions, Boeing does not plan any previously published Starliner flights. “If this were SpaceX, Musk would already be talking about three or four contracts he has made with famous people,” McDowell says. With the ISS positioning deorbited in 2030this may mean that Starliner – despite a decade of development work and billions of dollars spent – has the prospect of flying only a few times. “We do not know whether Boeing currently has the capacity to carry out additional commercial missions,” Forczyk says.
NASA is trying to spur the development of up-to-date commercial space stations in the same way as the commercial crew program, in hopes that they can fill the gap in orbital research left after the end of the ISS. These commercial stations could become destinations for Starliner and Crew Dragon if they come to fruition, but the exact appetite for the venture remains uncertain. “Is there enough of a market to support two entities doing this?” McDowell says. “I remain skeptical about commercial space stations. But if they succeed, you’ll need plenty of options to get up and down.
Until Boeing faces that future, it will simply hope for a silky and successful first crewed Starliner flight. Once it’s finally in the sky with humans on board, the spacecraft could begin to play the role it has long been advertised to play.
Updated 5/7/2024 10:30 BST: Added details of the up-to-date mission start time after removing the original May 6 launch.
Updated 6/5/2024 17:30 BST: Successful startup details added.