(Washington) Boeing is now targeting the “first half of 2022” to retry the test flight of its Starliner space capsule, after replacing three of the faulty valves that led to the cancellation of this test in August, the company said. Tuesday.
The machine, which is to be used by NASA to transport its astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), suffered a series of setbacks which considerably delayed the program.
This crucial test, without passengers on board, is now planned for “the first half of 2022,” John Vollmer, director of Boeing’s commercial flight program, told a press conference.
He added that the next test flight, which will include a crew, could take place “perhaps at the end of the year” 2022. “We would like the delay to be six months between flights,” he said. -he says.
On August 3, the launch was canceled just hours before takeoff, because 13 of the 24 valves of the propulsion system remained closed during the final checks.
Boeing teams determined that this malfunction was caused by a humidity problem, which by interacting with the oxidant present in the system, formed nitric acid which helped block the valves.
All of them have now been opened, except for one which has been decided not to unlock for further analysis.
“We are removing three of the valves, which will be replaced with new ones,” said Michelle Parker, chief engineer.
The dismantled ones will be sent to the NASA Marshall Center, where they will be scanned to verify that the cause of the problem is indeed the one envisaged.
The Starliner capsule was to be one of two, along with SpaceX’s named Dragon, to allow NASA to once again route its astronauts to the ISS from American soil. Since the stopping of space shuttles in 2011, the US agency has been dependent on Russian rockets.
But if SpaceX has already taken no less than ten astronauts to the ISS, including the Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, Boeing is still having to pass this first unmanned test flight, which must prove that the capsule is safe.
It was tried for the first time in 2019, but then came close to disaster, due to a software problem.
Starliner must have returned to Earth prematurely, and an investigation subsequently showed that the capsule nearly experienced a serious flight anomaly on entering the atmosphere. It took months of work to make changes.
The test flight was finally to be retried in August… with the misfortune we know.