Boeing’s Crewed Flight Test of Starliner has pushed a little further to the right again and is now scheduled to launch no earlier than May 1st. That shift is not due to any concerns with the vehicle or its readiness, but instead, ISS scheduling, specifically docking port availability, when astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Willmore arrive at the orbiting outpost.
Steve Stich, NASA’s Manager of Commercial Crew said in a press conference today that “The launch date right now is no earlier than May 1, and that’s driven by the ISS traffic.” He added, “As you know, it’s been a busy year on ISS. We have a cargo vehicle en route right now, and Dana will talk a little bit more about that mission and then how, at the end of the undocked time frame, we have to set up for a crewed flight test.”
“I had a chance to go over to one of the recent simulations and watch Butch and Suni and talk to them a bit. They’re in great spirits. They are ready and anxious to fly both the Starliner vehicle and also anxious to get on board ISS once they get there. They’ll be there for just under two weeks and the main focus will be putting Starliner through its paces,” Stich said.
CFT Will Be A Busy Flight Test
Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Vice President and Program Manager of the Starliner Program outlined what promises to be a busy schedule for Williams and Willmore during the flight. “The CFT flight is really the introduction of crew into our vehicle system. So a lot of our flight test objectives are about how that interface is going to work.”
Photo: NASA Livestream
As to flight test objectives, Nappi said, “We’ve got just under 90 of them. And it’s all, does the vehicle perform with the human in the loop, as expected?”
“We flew OFT-2,” Nappi added, “And that was the uncrewed mission for the Starliner vehicle. It was very successful. Now we introduce the human. And so what are we going to do to establish that interface?”
“From prelaunch through ascent, we’re going to be looking at how the astronauts fit into the seats, how they interface with the equipment in the vehicle. when we go through approach and rendezvous.” After that, Nappi said, “We’ll confirm the thruster performance and manual scenarios are working as expected. We’ll check the communications. We’ll check the manual and auto navigation systems and the operation of the life support system with crew now in the vehicle.”
Photo: Boeing
After arriving at ISS, Nappi said “once we’re on dock, we’ll look at hatch operations and how that works with the crew. And, once we get past the first few days, we’ll go into a quiescent mode and make sure that performs Rnominally. And then after that, it’s about crew, excuse me, about cargo transfer.”
Preparing for re-entry and landing will also be a major set of test objectives: “We’ll undock,” Nappi said. “We’ll confirm our manual piloting system. We’ll be able to go into the backup mode and let Butch and Suni use the hand controllers to make sure the vehicle reacts as expected.”
Finally, Nappi said, “How we separate from the crew module with the service module and how we re enter and use the parachute systems and test the landing systems out. So a lot of nominal operations, but this time the crew is involved and so we want to check that interface out.”
Photo: NASA
“CFT is a test flight, so we expect that there may be some lessons learned,” Nappi concluded.
Williams and Willmore’s flight is expected to last around eight days.
