After eleven years of development, total NASA funding of US$ 5.1 billion, plus company-paid cost overruns of US$ 595 million, a humiliating unmanned test flight which failed to reach the International Space Station and narrowly avoided disaster on return to Earth (both due to software problems), seven years after the first flight was planned when the contract was awarded, and eight months of delays to fix valve problems due to the unexpected discovery that it can be humid on the Florida coast in summer, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner sits atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral, poised for a second uncrewed Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2), intended to demonstrate “this time for sure” that it can fly to the International Space Station and return safely to Earth.
Launch is scheduled for 2022-05-19 at 22:54 UTC from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This is an instantaneous launch window—if it doesn’t go on time, they’ll have to try again another day. The test mission carries no crew, but will carry 220 kg of cargo up to the ISS and return 260 kg from the station.
Here is the NASA/Boeing media teleconference (audio only) held after the Orbital Flight Test-2 Flight Readiness Review held on 2022-05-11 immediately after the mission was cleared to launch on 2022-05-19.
A typical rocket ascent trajectory is relatively steep because of the desire to get out of the dense part of the atmosphere quickly, both to reduce losses due to aerodynamic drag and also to minimise structural loads on the rocket that would be imposed were it to accelerate to a high speed in denser air. While this maximises the payload you can orbit with a given rocket, it has the consequence that if the booster fails during ascent, it leaves the payload on a relatively steep up-and-down ballistic trajectory, which means that when it re-enters the atmosphere, rather than skimming the edge of the thin upper atmosphere as it would returning from orbit, it slams quickly into denser and denser air which subjects the spacecraft to high deceleration forces and also imposes a shorter but more intense load on the heat shield.
An earlier post here, “The Wild Suborbital Space Flight of Soyuz 18a” (2022-01-13) discussed a Soviet launch in 1975 in which the booster failed and the Soyuz descent module plunged back into the atmosphere from an apogee of 192 km, subjecting the crew to a deceleration of 21.3 gravities, which is on the edge of human survivability. Both cosmonauts were injured. The commander recovered but never flew again, while the flight engineer flew on three subsequent Soyuz missions.
The Boeing Starliner / Atlas V deliberately flies on a flatter trajectory than optimal, “wasting” some of the potential performance of the booster so that should a launch abort happen at any point prior to normal spacecraft separation, the capsule will be on a trajectory that does not subject the crew to g-forces in excess of those considered safe. This comes at a cost: the Centaur upper stage of the Atlas V must be configured with two RL-10 engines to support this trajectory, which roughly doubles its already princely cost.
Another safety feature of the Starliner launch profile is that the Atlas/Centaur does not quite put the spacecraft into orbit. Instead, it leaves the Starliner on a trajectory which intersects the atmosphere on the other side of the globe. Starliner then uses its own maneuvering engines to add the small additional velocity to circularlise the orbit. This means that if the maneuvering engines were not to work after capsule separation from the booster, the crew gets a “free return" to Earth just by waiting half an orbit.
These safety features are superior to those provided by the SpaceX Crew Dragon, which uses a steeper ascent trajectory and whose Falcon 9 second stage places the capsule directly into a circular orbit. Whether this is worth paying around twice as much per seat for the Starliner is up to NASA to decide.
So far, so good. The launch, spacecraft separation, and orbital insertion burn all went well. Starliner is now in the desired initial orbit to begin its chase of the International Space Station with docking in around 24 hours. I have cued the replay of the launch in the original post to start one minute before launch.
If all goes well, coverage of the approach and docking phase should start around 19:30 UTC on 2022-05-20, with docking about 23:10 UTC. I will post the live stream of these events when it becomes available.
Here is the Boeing live stream of the Starliner approach and docking to the International Space Station. The stream is scheduled to start at 19:30 UTC on 2022-05-20.
Starliner is now hard docked to the International Space Station. After a series of leak checks on the docking adaptor, the hatch will be opened tomorrow.
Here is the NASA/Boeing post-docking media teleconference (audio only) held at 01:30 UTC on 2022-05-21.
Most of the question and answer period dealt with the multiple thruster failures during the rendezvous process. This points out a major difference between Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. On Crew Dragon, all of the thrusters used for launch abort, attitude control, and orbital maneuvering are located on the crew capsule and reused for every mission: the Crew Dragon disposable “trunk” section contains only the solar panels, heat radiators, and aerodynamic fins for in-atmosphere aborts. On Starliner, however, the service module contains all of the thrusters except for a small complement on the capsule used solely for re-entry attitude control. There are 20 high thrust maneuvering engines, 28 low thrust attitude control and orbital adjustment thrusters, plus four launch abort engines, all in the service module. Since the service module is jettisoned before re-entry and burns up in the atmosphere, all of this hardware is expended on every Starliner flight. Because the thrusters are not returned to Earth, there will be no opportunity to examine them after the flight to determine the cause(s) of the multiple failures. As SpaceX has said on many occasions, reusability not only reduces cost, it improves reliability since in-flight problems can be diagnosed after vehicle return and components inspected between flights to monitor emerging life-cycle problems.
I suspect that throwing away all of that service module hardware (fifty-two rocket engines, plus propellant tanks, valves, and plumbing!) on every flight contributes to the high cost of Starliner compared to Crew Dragon. Oh, and they also throw away the heat shield before landing, and a nose cover on the way to orbit.
Crew of the International Space Station is expected to open the hatch of the now-docked Starliner and inspect the interior around 15:30 UTC on 2022-05-21. Boeing and NASA will live stream the event starting at that time.
Here is a view from inside Starliner shortly after the hatch was opened. In the background is one of the NASA astronauts on the ISS checking out the capsule. In the foreground is “Rosie the Rocketeer”, a human factors mannequin in the commander’s seat wearing a Boeing space suit and Rosie the Riveter themed face muzzle. In the copilot seat is the zero-g indicator (a tradition going back to early Soviet space missions) which for this flight is Jebediah Kerman, kerbonaut #0001, from Kerbal Space Program.
Here is a view from Boeing showing Jeb in the copilot seat. But who could ever imagine Jeb being a copilot unless Valentina was in command!
Here is a live stream of the re-entry and landing of Starliner OFT-2, with coverage scheduled to start at 21:45 UTC on 2022-05-25. Landing is planned for White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where the capsule will touch down using its three parachutes and air bags. With Jebediah Kerman on board, what could possibly go wrong?
Here is video of Starliner undocking from the International Space Station and a time-lapse of the initial phases of departure. The entire operation was performed in orbital night.
Starliner (and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon) use attitude control thrusters that burn nitrogen tetroxide and hydrazine, which are seriously nasty chemicals. They said, back in the day, that if you inhale hydrazine it smells like fish, but it’s already too late because you’re already dead.
So, after these craft land, they have to use sniffers to make sure there are no leaks of this toxic stuff before the crew exit and unprotected staff approach the capsule. The first people who approach after the landing have the full hazmat suits, breathing equipment, and red shoes to verify it’s safe. The red shoes make it extra-safe.
Here is the NASA/Boeing post-landing press conference. Participants were Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program; Joel Montalbano, manager of NASA’s International Space Station Program; Suni Williams, NASA astronaut; and Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program.
