Leaks and failures in the first manned Starliner flight

June 7 () –

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was successfully docked to the International Space Station on its first manned flight, although there were helium leaks and thruster failures during the journey.

The docking took place at 17:34 UTC on Thursday and at 19:45 the access hatch to the orbital complex was opened, where the NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams They were received by the six crew members of Expedition 71. Starliner had taken off on June 5 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, after two unsuccessful attempts on May 7 and June 1. The mission will last on the station for a week.

.@NASA_Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams entered the space station at 3:45pm ET today after opening @BoeingSpace‘s #Starliner hatch. More… https://t.co/xMhboDe5Bd pic.twitter.com/OHchJCgrNa

— International Space Station (@Space_Station) June 6, 2024

HELium LEAKS IN ORBIT AND PROPELLER FAILURES ON APPROACH

During the flight, Wilmore and Williams successfully performed Starliner manual piloting demonstrations and completed a sleep period. Before the crew’s sleep, the mission teams identified three helium leaks in the spacecraft. One of them was previously discussed before the flight along with a management plan, and the other two occurred when the spacecraft reached orbit, NASA reports.

To monitor and manage these leaks, all three helium manifolds closed in flight during the crew’s sleep period and all were reopened prior to rendezvous and docking operations. After docking, all Starliner manifolds were closed according to normal plans.

#Starliner is holding at 10m away from @Space_Station for ~6 minutes until the sun is at an optimal angle to provide nominal lighting. pic.twitter.com/iFGhWHFAS8

— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) June 6, 2024

When Starliner began its approach to the space station, five reaction control system thrusters failed during the flight. Mission teams performed a series of hot-ignition tests that reactivated four of the thrusters while the crew manually piloted the spacecraft to the station’s 200-meter holding point.

After reselecting four of the boosters, Starliner had the required fault tolerance to approach the space station for docking. At the 10-meter holding point, the mission team completed system readiness assessments and proceeded to docking.

YEARS DELAY

Starliner is the result of the contract that NASA signed with Boeing and Space X to transport its astronauts to the International Space Station. While Space X’s Crew Dragon has been flying astronauts regularly to the orbital complex since May 2020, Boeing’s Starliner has suffered years of delays.

This capsule had been launched only twice so far, on uncrewed test flights to the orbital laboratory. Starliner suffered several problems on the first mission, which launched in December 2019, and failed to reach the orbital complex as planned. But he achieved it on his second attempt, in May 2022.

Externally similar to the Orion spacecraft, the reusable Starliner capsule has a diameter of 4.56 meters and is designed to be able to carry up to seven people, remain in orbit for up to seven months and be reused on up to ten missions.