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Boeing is troubleshooting a small helium leak at the Starliner spacecraft

Boeing is troubleshooting a small helium leak at the Starliner spacecraft
May 15, 2024


Boeing is troubleshooting a small helium leak at the Starliner spacecraft
Magnify / A view taking a look down at Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and United Release Alliance’s Atlas V rocket throughout the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral House Drive Station, Florida.

Boeing is taking a couple of additional days to unravel a small helium leak at the Starliner spacecraft slated to ferry two NASA astronauts on a take a look at flight to the World House Station, officers stated Tuesday.
This implies the primary team release of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, operating years in the back of time table and greater than $1.4 billion over price range, may not occur earlier than subsequent Tuesday, Might 21, at 4:43 pm EDT (20:43 UTC). Assembly this time table assumes engineers can get pleased with the helium leak. Officers from Boeing and NASA, which manages Boeing’s multibillion-dollar Starliner industrial team contract, up to now centered Friday, Might 17, for the spacecraft’s first release with astronauts onboard.
Boeing’s floor staff traced the leak to a flange on a unmarried response keep an eye on device thruster at the spacecraft’s carrier module.
There are 28 response keep an eye on device thrusters—necessarily small rocket engines—at the Starliner carrier module. In orbit, those thrusters are used for minor direction corrections and pointing the spacecraft in the correct path. The carrier module has two units of extra tough engines for higher orbital changes and launch-abort maneuvers.
The spacecraft’s propulsion device is pressurized the usage of helium, an inert fuel. The thrusters burn a mix of poisonous hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants. Helium isn’t flamable or poisonous, so a small leak isn’t more likely to be a big protection factor at the floor, however the propulsion device should hang power for the thrusters to paintings in house.
A couple of technical setbacks have saved Boeing’s Starliner program from achieving this level till now. Those setbacks incorporated a gas leak on a take a look at stand, device issues on Starliner’s first unpiloted take a look at flight, and corroded valves within the spacecraft’s propulsion device. Within the run-up to a release try remaining summer season, Boeing and NASA came upon two extra issues—flammable subject material throughout the pill and a susceptible hyperlink on Starliner’s parachute device—that driven again the team take a look at flight just about a yr.
Consistent with NASA, engineers plan to handle the helium leak the usage of “spacecraft checking out and operational answers.” In different phrases, managers do not look forward to any wish to bodily restore the leak.
“As part of the checking out, Boeing will deliver the propulsion device as much as flight pressurization simply because it does previous to release, after which permit the helium device to vent naturally to validate present knowledge and reinforce flight rationale,” NASA officers wrote in a weblog submit Tuesday. Flight rationale is NASA-speak for gaining self belief in figuring out an issue and getting comfy it might now not pose an added chance right through the flight.
Commercial

Rocket is excellent to head
A valve failure at the Atlas V rocket set to release Boeing’s Starliner team pill minimize quick the primary release try for the team take a look at flight Might 6 at Cape Canaveral House Drive Station, Florida. United Release Alliance, the corporate that builds and operates the Atlas V, rolled the rocket and Starliner off the release pad and again to a hangar remaining week to change out the inaccurate power law valve at the Atlas V’s Centaur higher level.
As soon as put in at the rocket, the brand new valve carried out typically in checks inside of ULA’s hangar. ULA will roll the rocket again to the release pad a few days earlier than the following release try.
“Project groups additionally finished a radical overview of the knowledge from the Might 6 release try and don’t seem to be monitoring another problems,” NASA stated.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, commander and pilot for the Starliner take a look at flight, returned to their house base in Houston to spend extra time with their households and look forward to the project’s subsequent release date. They are going to go back to the Kennedy House Heart in Florida within the coming days for ultimate release preps, NASA stated.
Wilmore and Williams, each US Army take a look at pilots, will oversee Starliner’s programs from release thru docking on the World House Station. Their duties come with taking on handbook keep an eye on of the Boeing team pill for a chain of piloting demonstrations. If all is going in keeping with plan, they are going to spend a minimum of 8 days on the house station earlier than returning to Earth throughout the Starliner spacecraft for a parachute-assisted, airbag-cushioned touchdown within the southwestern United States, most probably at White Sands, New Mexico.
Their keep on the house station might be prolonged to look forward to excellent climate at one among Starliner’s touchdown websites. With the impending flight of Starliner, the US will, for the primary time for the reason that crack of dawn of the House Age, have two unbiased human-rated spaceships able to flying folks into low-Earth orbit. SpaceX’s Staff Dragon, which gained a NASA industrial team contract concurrently Boeing in 2014, began flying astronauts in 2020.
NASA’s industrial team contract with Boeing covers six operational team rotation flights to and from the gap station. A a hit take a look at flight with Wilmore and Williams would pave the best way for Starliner to fly the primary of those six-month team missions early subsequent yr.

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