NASA will provide update on ISS and the troubled Starliner today

NASA will provide update on ISS and the troubled Starliner today

NASA announced that it will host a media teleconference at 11:30 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, August 7, to discuss ongoing International Space Station (ISS) operations, as well as an update on Boeing Crew Flight Test and NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission. This was the first manned mission for Boeing's Starliner (made in Alabama) and the mission has been problem plagued. Two astronauts were supposed to have returned to Earth on the Starliner in June; but problems with the spacecraft have delayed that trip seven weeks to this point.

NASA experts who will be participating in Wednesday's press briefing include: Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate; Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program; and Dana Weigel, manager, International Space Station Program.

NASA says that for more than two decades, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge, demonstrating new technologies, and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit. As commercial companies focus on providing human space transportation services and destinations as part of a robust low Earth orbit economy, NASA's Artemis campaign is underway at the Moon, where the agency is preparing for future human exploration of Mars.

Starliner is Boeing's entry in the Commercial Crew Program. Following the retirement and disposal of the Space Shuttle fleet, NASA had no American vehicle to get astronauts back and forth between Earth and the ISS. Americans and Europeans wishing to board the ISS flew on Russian spacecraft. Relations between Russia and the west have declined considerably over the last twenty years finally culminating in the invasion of Ukraine (the largest war in Europe since World War II). Due to growing problems with dealing with the Putin regime, NASA resumed building rocket engines in the USA and launched the Commercial Crew Program to provide it with alternatives to using Russian vehicles to get astronauts into low Earth orbits. Starliner is Boeing's long delayed entry into the Commercial Crew program.

While engineers for NASA and Boeing are racing to find a way to repair the stricken spacecraft, fears are growing that it might not ever be safe for NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return on the spacecraft. NASA still doesn't have an official return date for the astronauts, while NASA continues to explore its options.

Ars Technica is reporting that even having Starliner return without astronauts on board may not be an option.

Ars' sources claim that Starliner's current flight software doesn't allow Boeing to autonomously undock from the space station and reenter through the Earth's atmosphere without an astronaut on board the ship to work the controls.

Starliner has problems with its control system thrusters that Boeing says are due to the seals becoming degraded leading to potentially disastrous helium leaks.

NASA could potentially send the astronauts home with a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch to the ISS later this year.

Boeing has already successfully undocked Starliner from the ISS without astronauts on board on its previous unmanned test mission in May 2022; but to do it with this version of Starliner would require a software update, which will be a difficult feat given that the ship is in space right now.

Ars is reporting that updating the ship's software from Earth would be a "non-trivial" and "significant" undertaking that could take up to four weeks.

This would mean having to delay the August SpaceX Dragon mission, scheduled for August 14 to September.

"Starliner was designed as a spacecraft to have the crew in the cockpit," NASA Commercial Crew program manager Steve Stich told reporters on July 25. "The crew is integral to the spacecraft."

Another option would be for Starliner to return crewed, as originally planned. Doing that will depend on positive results from NASA's recent test of the capsules thrusters. How many of them still work and what are the risks of more thruster failures if they attempt to fly the ship back to Earth with Wilmore and/or Williams on board. Are the risks too great with the problem plagued spaceship to even attempt that mission at this point?

Starliner was largely built in Alabama as United Launch Alliance's (ULA) rocket assembly plant in Decatur.

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