The Boeing Starliner’s strange test flight finally returned to Earth, but it’s empty – The Verge

Boeing reportedly considers selling off its space business

2024-10-25T17:16:23-04:00

Kelly Ortberg, who took over as Boeing CEO in August, is weighing the sale of the company's space division as part of an attempt to turn things around, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The plans, which are reportedly at an early stage, could involve Boeing offloading the Starliner spacecraft and its projects supporting the International Space Station.

Boeing is facing a series of predicaments, including a fraud charge over 737 Max plane crashes and Starliner issues that left two astronauts at the ISS for months. Just this week, a Boeing-made satellite for Intelsat stopped working and fell apart suddenly after suffering an …

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Boeing Starliner has completed its lonely return to Earth

2024-09-07T10:51:06-04:00

Starliner just after undocking from the ISS. | Screenshot: YouTube

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft successfully completed its uncrewed flight back to Earth, NASA announced overnight. The return ended the Starliner's most recent flight test months later than intended and leaves its original crew, NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, aboard the International Space Station until next year.

The Starliner touched down right on time at 12:01 AM ET at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, according to NASA. Officials at the agency hailed its successful descent:

"I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are pleased to see Starliner's safe …

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Boeing’s Starliner started making a repeating ‘pulsing’ sound Saturday

2024-09-01T17:17:46-04:00

US astronaut Barry Wilmore called NASA ground crew on Saturday, asking for help with a repetitive knocking sound that was coming from the Boeing Starliner craft. The interaction was captured by a NASA Space Flight forum member, who included a recording of it in a post that was spotted by Ars Technica.

In the recording, Wilmore asks the NASA crew in Houston to configure their call to show them the noise, which he says is coming from the speaker inside Starliner. Then, a repetitive clanging sound with slight there's-something-on-the-wing vibes can be heard. The Earthside crew member describes it as sounding "almost like a sonar ping."

Starli …

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NASA will bring the Starliner astronauts home next year on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission

2024-08-24T13:18:02-04:00

NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced today that US astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore will return next February with the SpaceX Crew-9 mission after spending more than 80 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

According to NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich, "As we got more and more data over the summer and understood the uncertainty of that data, it became very clear to us that the best course of action was to return Starliner uncrewed." He said NASA found "there was just just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters."

"If we had a way to actually predict what the thrusters would do, …

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Suggestions for how the stranded Boeing Starliner astronauts can entertain themselves

2024-08-15T13:27:00-04:00

Probably you have already heard that astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Sunita Williams may not be able to leave on the Boeing Starliner that brought them to the International Space Station. I have been thinking about it in quiet moments - when I wake up in the morning, on hikes, in the shower.

Those guys popped up there on June 5th, and they were supposed to spend a week on the ISS doing normal astronaut stuff and then go home. But apparently the Boeing Starliner was made about as well as the Boeing 737 Max, and so the astronauts have been on an unplanned vacation in orbit. They might be up there until next February - NASA hasn't made a …

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Boeing Starliner astronauts might get a ride home from SpaceX — in 2025

2024-08-07T17:10:55-04:00

During a press conference today, NASA representatives confirmed they have a contingency plan to bring astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home from the International Space Station (ISS) early next year. If they're unable to leave sooner aboard the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that brought them there, the backup plan would rely on SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, which has had its launch delayed while officials figure out what to do next.

After a successful crewed launch of the Boeing Starliner on June 5th (following several delays), the two astronauts were originally supposed to spend about a week aboard the ISS before parachuting back to …

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Third time’s the charm — Boeing’s Starliner crewed flight test has finally launched

2024-06-05T11:54:59-04:00

The third attempt at a crewed launch of the Boeing Starliner was a success. On Wednesday at 10:52AM ET, the spacecraft lifted off atop the United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and now has reached a "safe, stable orbit."

The Starliner will bring NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the International Space Station about 24 hours from now, where they'll "test the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system, including launch, docking, and return to Earth." The two astronauts will stay at the ISS for about a week before parachuting down in the western portion of the US.

Starliner to the stars …

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Boeing’s first crewed Starliner launch delayed again over computer issues

2024-06-01T15:18:18-04:00

Boeing, NASA, and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) scrubbed today's launch of Starliner less than 4 minutes before liftoff. The setback comes after a string of disappointments, but as with its early May delay, the issue wasn't with Boeing's crew vehicle.

NASA says the ULA is currently investigating why a computer, called a ground launch sequencer, didn't enter "the correct operational configuration," triggering an automatic hold. During a press conference afterward, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said the issue was that one of three redundant launch sequencers, which are used to control things like releasing connections to the rocket prior to launch, w …

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Boeing Starliner test flight delayed until 2022

2021-10-09T13:52:06-04:00

A test flight for Boeing’s Starliner has been pushed back to 2022 | NASA/Joel Kowsky

NASA has officially pushed back the launch of its Orbital Flight-Test 2 until next year, as it continues to work on an oxidizer isolation valve issue on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, the agency announced.

The agency said in a blog post that it's continuing to assess potential launch windows for the mission: "The team currently is working toward opportunities in the first half of 2022 pending hardware readiness, the rocket manifest and space station availability," according to the post.

Steve Stitch, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, added that it was "a complex issue," affecting parts of the spacecraft that aren't easy to access, …

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NASA shuffles astronaut crew assignments amid ongoing Boeing delays

2021-10-06T12:36:11-04:00

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft | Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images

Two NASA astronauts originally slated to launch on an upcoming flight of Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft have been reassigned to an upcoming SpaceX flight instead, as delays continue to push back Starliner's next flight to space. Astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada were supposed to be among the first human passengers on Starliner during its first crewed flights in the coming years. Now, they'll fly together on SpaceX's fifth crewed mission to the International Space Station, which is slated to take place in the fall of 2022.

Mann and Cassada were first assigned to fly on Starliner in 2018. Mann was supposed to fly on the Starliner's f …

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