NASA Puches Back Starliner Return Date to

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It seems like just three or four days ago [It was just three or four days ago, Steve —Editor] when I asked if Boeing’s cursed Starliner space capsule was going to be marooned up there at the International Space Station. Well, NASA has taken another step toward marooning Boeing’s cursed Starliner space capsule up there.

When last we heard, Starliner’s planned one-week crewed flight test to the ISS was supposed to last about one week. The original return flight was delayed until June 18 due to a scheduled spacewalk, which was later called off after someone reported some kind of “spacesuit discomfort.”

I swear to you that happened.

Then the return was delayed again to June 22 so NASA could devote more time to studying Starliner thruster issues, and then once more to June 26 so that NASA could spend even more time trying to figure out what was going on with multiple, small helium leaks and the failure of four thrusters during Starliner’s orbital docking on June 6.

“We’ve learned that our helium system is not performing as designed,” Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Starliner program manager, said last week. “Albeit manageable, it’s still not working like we designed it. So we’ve got to go figure that out.”

Now even the June 26 return has been delayed “indefinitely.”

“We are letting the data drive our decision-making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking,” NASA Commercial Crew Program chief Steve Stich said in a statement Friday night.

Here’s where the situation really gets fun because “indefinitely” is not the same thing as “take all the time you need.”

The clock started ticking on getting astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back home to Earth the moment they (belatedly) docked with ISS 18 days ago. This Starliner test capsule is only rated for a 45-day stay at ISS, so “the window for a safe return flight is narrowing,” Live Science reported on Sunday.

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Still, the smart money is on Starliner returning safely to Earth — and even with Wilmore and Williams on board. Here’s some sharp analysis from an engineer about what NASA is likely doing with all that “indefinite” time:

What I’d use more time (and data) for is to do deeper root cause analysis and contingency planning. That is, with updated expectations of failure rates, I’d want to carefully think through a bunch of if/then cases — “if the leak is due to cause A, then this other problem could arise, and we’d be able to deal with it by…” followed by “if it’s due to cause B, then…”

That doesn’t mean that the vehicle is unsafe as it is. But it’s not performing as expected [emphasis in original], so it’s time to incorporate adjusted expectations into the planning and see what comes out. That takes time to do well.

This makes sense to me. NASA has more than three weeks before Wimore and Williams hit the hard out for climbing back on board and coming home.

If some other arrangement needs to be made, there’s time for that, too. Although, as I only half-joked a couple of weeks ago, Elon Musk probably ordered SpaceX to have a Dragon Crew capsule on standby — along with a couple of compatible spacesuits — in case NASA ends up needing a helping hand getting Wilmore and Williams back home.

But maybe the real takeaway is this snippet from space reporter Eric Berger: “Officials have downplayed the overall seriousness of these issues — repeatedly saying Starliner is cleared to come home ‘in case of an emergency.’ But they have yet to fully explain why they are not yet comfortable with releasing Starliner to fly back to Earth under normal circumstances.”

Indeed. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program was supposed to make getting people to and from the ISS routine, but there’s been nothing routine about any of Starliner’s three test missions.