Starliner landing date moved again as NASA and Boeing teams seek more spacecraft testing

After launching June 5 to the International Space Station onboard Boeing's Starliner, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were planning for a roughly eight-day mission. While their visit was already extended once to June 22, NASA announced Tuesday that the crew's return will be moved again — to June 26.

On its crewed flight test − the one which will certify the spacecraft to ferry NASA astronauts − Starliner has faced additional issues since arriving at the ISS. With the crew safely onboard the station, teams decided to take advantage of the time in orbit to further investigate Starliner, particularly the service module which has been the source of some trouble and is jettisoned and burns up during re-entry.

“We don’t get the service module back, so this this an opportunity to fully understand the systems performance, and without the pressure of schedule or time. We have the time,” said Mark Nappi, vice president of Boeing's commercial crew program.

When is the next launch? Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA, ULA rocket launch schedule in Florida

NASA: Safety is paramount

Steve Stich, program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, stated on Tuesday that the additional stay will allow teams to further analyze problems with the spacecraft's thrusters and the helium leaks within the service module.

This will allow for improvement to the spacecraft design going forward, officials said.

"Safety is paramount," Stich said.

Starliner helium leak and thruster issue update

While a small helium leaked was detected pre-launch, crews decided it was safe to proceed with the mission, ensuring the spacecraft had enough redundancy should something go wrong. However, as Starliner approached the space station, more helium leaks appeared, followed by the malfunction of multiple thrusters. Williams and Wilmore piloted Starliner in manual mode as the thrusters were re-fired during what was referred to as a "hot-fire" test.

All but one of the thrusters kicked back on. As of Tuesday, Stich stated that the malfunctioning thruster did not perform during a test while docked to the ISS, and therefore will not be used.

There are seven thrusters in total, and additional testing this past week proved all but the troubled thruster is functioning correctly, Stich said. The six working thrusters show good chamber pressure, staying at 300 psi, a process which Stich compared to checking the tire pressure on one's car.

The testing included firing the thrusters and measuring how much the spacecraft moved the million-pound space station.

Dana Weigel, International Space Station (ISS) Program Manager for NASA, also added that the Canadarm, a robotic arm outside the ISS, was used to inspect the spacecraft.

The helium leak rates are also going down. While the spacecraft needs seven hours of helium for the return to Earth, Starliner shows 70 hours remaining. While docked to the ISS, the helium is closed off and does not leak.

As to why these issues happened in space and were not seen during testing, Stich stated that the mission was "more demanding" on the spacecraft than anticipated.

“They seem to be related to the rendezvous, or the thruster firing. That’s why we couldn’t see them on the ground,” said Stich. “All we have is a static system.”

Teams state that while similar issues were seen on Starliner's second orbital flight test, OFT-2, in 2022, these issues are different.

"So now, the team has to go through all that information from the test on Saturday, from the previous flight data that we have while we docked to station, and from even previous flights, and they want to go through all that, and they want to make sure that we haven’t missed anything, and that we have good rationale,” said Nappi, regarding the issues discovered during this flight.

As of Tuesday, Nappi stated that Starliner has met 77 of its 87 flight test objectives. The additional objectives will be measured during undocking and reentry.

Starliner Crew remain active onboard station

Stit=ch said the two astronauts were keeping busy onboard the space station.

“They might want to stay for a long period of time,” he said.

Williams and Wilmore have been helping with experiments and they'd expected to help with a planned spacewalk. But the spacewalk was canceled at the last minute.

Why was the NASA spacewalk canceled?

On June 13, as Tracy Dyson and Matt Dominick were putting on their spacesuits, NASA said the spacewalk was scrubbed due to "spacesuit discomfort issues".

During the Tuesday press briefing, Weigel stated that teams are now planning the spacewalk for June 24. Dyson and Mike Barratt will retrieve a failed communications box to bring back for repair. The two astronauts will also swab for microorganisms that may exist outside the ISS.

The reasoning for Barratt replacing Dominick is that NASA needs to cut the number of spacewalks from three to two after last week's scrub. And a spacesuit was ready for Barret, and it would prevent the repeat of "discomfort issues" that led to last week's scrub.

No further information was given.

Starliner new return date

Starliner will return to Earth at 2:51 a.m. Mountain Time/4:51 a.m. EDT on June 26, landing at White Sands, New Mexico. There it will make a parachute and airbag assisted landing − similar to the Russian Soyuz, which also touches down on land.

Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: NASA/Boeing teams to preform additional testing of Starliner in orbit