NASA & Boeing Make Major Discoveries To Help Bring Crew Back Home On Boeing’s Ship

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NASA and Boeing have made significant progress with their ground tests for the Starliner spacecraft, currently docked to the International Space Station (ISS). Starliner took off on June 5th, and while the ship was initially expected to spend a week at the station, its return has been delayed because of helium leaks and thruster problems. As part of their process to understand the reasons behind the thruster anomalies, NASA and Boeing ran ground tests in White Sands.

Representatives from the agency and the company shared key learnings from the tests in a conference earlier today, which give them confidence in setting a launch date for Starliner's return.

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NASA's Commercial Crew Manager Steve Stich started his opening remarks by sharing the progress of the agency and Boeing with their ground tests at White Sands. He explained that teams put "the thruster through the profile that it saw during the flight in terms of replicating the firings for the uphill phase, including the docking day where some of these thrusters failed off and then replicate the downhill phase." As part of this process, NASA and Boeing simulated the thruster firing to mimic the conditions it saw during docking to the ISS, which was the first time the thrusters lost power.

They also ran "five different downhill profiles." The last profile degraded the thruster, which provided key details similar to the degradation that the thrusters in space have experienced, including reduced thrust. NASA is now taking apart the thruster on the ground to understand the reasons behind the failure. These include analyzing the fuel and oxidizer valves, as well as a "bulge in a Teflon seal which can restrict the