Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft won’t reach the International Space Station after falling off its planned orbital path Friday morning, officials said.
The capsule launched without a hitch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6:36 a.m. But it went off course because of an error with its so-called mission elapsed timing system, meaning it will miss its weeklong stay at the space station, officials said.
The Starliner thought the time was different than it actually was, causing it to burn more fuel than planned during the uncrewed flight, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
“When that (fuel) got burnt it looked like we weren’t gonna be able to go ahead and rendezvous with the International Space Station,” Bridenstine said at a news conference.
The team handling the flight couldn’t communicate with the Starliner in time to fix the problem remotely, Bridenstine said, adding that astronauts could have corrected it had they been on board.
The spacecraft is now in a stable orbit that will allow it to land in White Sands, New Mexico, in two days, said Boeing senior vice president Jim Chilton.
“Without knowing exactly what was going on, the team quite rightly said, let me put the spacecraft in an orbit that I know I can control and get home and give the engineering team time to thoroughly figure out what’s going on,” said Chilton of Boeing’s Space and Launch division.
The Starliner test was Boeing’s effort to compete with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company that completed a successful demo launch with NASA in March.
Boeing could have launched astronauts into space next summer had the Starliner launch been successful, while SpaceX’s Dragon capsule could carry people by the spring. Astronauts have not taken off from the US since NASA’s Atlantis shuttle launched in 2011.
Source: Nypost
