Boeing's CST-100 Starliner space taxi made a flawless automated landing in New Mexico today, marking the end of an orbital test flight that was cut short due to a glitch with the craft's timing system.
Because of the glitch, NASA and Boeing had to forgo Starliner's planned trip to the International Space Station. But the uncrewed transport notched a first in space history nevertheless by becoming the first crew-capable U.S. space capsule to make its return to Earth on land.
No issues were reported during Starliner's descent from orbit — which included the jettison of the spacecraft's service module and heat shields. All three main parachutes opened successfully, which was an improvement on the parachutes' performance during last month's pad abort test.
The climax came just before sunrise at 5:58 a.m. MT (4:58 a.m. PT) with Starliner's parachute-assisted, airbag-cushioned landing at White Sands Missile Range.
"Once it hit the ground, I let out a deep sigh," Boeing engineer Jim May said during a NASA webcast.
The trouble-free touchdown for the Orbital Flight Test buoyed confidence for an follow-on mission known as the Crewed Flight Test, which would send Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson and NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann to the space station and back.
"Looks like it's going to be a smooth ride for CFT, judging by how softly and smoothly this OFT vehicle came down this morning," Richard Jones, NASA flight director at Mission Control in Houston, was quoted as saying on the webcast.
The crew members for that future flight were on hand in New Mexico to check out Starliner after the landing. "Three parachutes, six airbags and a beautiful soft landing," Fincke said. "Can't wait to try it out."
Many of the flight test's objectives were met, including establishing links with the space station and extending Starliner's docking mechanism. "We got some objectives done," Jones said.
But because the craft wasn't able to hook up with the space station, none of the objectives relating to an actual docking could be checked off.
NASA and Boeing will have to review the data from the flight — including readings from the sensors attached to a test dummy nicknamed Rosie the Rocketeer — and then decide what steps need to be taken before the crewed test flight.
"It was great data, and we're going to analyze it, and we're going to see anything we need to fix for the next flight. But it's looking good," Fincke said.
One priority will be to trace the root cause of the timing system glitch, which spoiled Starliner's ascent to orbit about a half-hour after Friday's launch from Florida.
Mission managers said Starliner's software used an incorrect time stamp for a sequence of automated maneuvers during ascent. The time stamp was pulled out of data stored on the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. Boeing engineers were still trying to figure out what went wrong.
The glitch caused Starliner to miss out on firing its maneuvering engines for a key orbital insertion burn. Instead, it repeatedly fired the smaller thrusters in its reaction control system.
After some communication snags, ground controllers were able to upload corrected instructions and get the spacecraft into a stable, albeit lower, orbit. But by that time, so much fuel had been expended that NASA and Boeing decided they couldn't risk a space station rendezvous.
Jim Chilton, senior vice president of the space and launch division for Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said the timing issue didn't show up in pre-launch simulations. "We are surprised that a very large body of integrated tests didn't surface this," Chilton said on Saturday. But he vowed that "we're going to go fix it."
NASA's deputy manager for the Commercial Crew Program, Steve Stich, said there was a positive side to the mission's complications.
"This fairly stressful timing issue has caused us to work closer together," Stich said.
NASA is paying Boeing and SpaceX billions of dollars to develop space taxis that can transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station — filling a U.S. spacecraft gap that's existed ever since the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011. In the interim, NASA has had to pay the Russians tens of millions per seat for rides on Soyuz spacecraft.
Boeing is preparing another Starliner spacecraft for the Crewed Flight Test. The craft that landed today will be refurbished for the second crewed flight.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is continuing work on its Crew Dragon space taxi. It's scheduled to put a Crew Dragon through an in-flight abort test in January. Both SpaceX and Boeing are aiming to start flying astronauts later next year.
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