The crew of the Boeing Starliner will spend the summer aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as NASA and Boeing refused to set a return date for the craft.

During a
briefing on July 25, Mark Nappi, Vice President and Program Manager of Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, commented on the emphasis placed on the eight-day mission duration. "It's my regret that we didn't just say we're going to stay up there until we get everything done that we want to," he said.

The mission has breezed past that eight-day duration and might exceed ten times that before managers finally decide to bring the Starliner crew back to Earth. NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said that a battery waiver to extend the duration Starliner could remain in space had been approved, doubling the time to 90 days. "That gives us a life, if we need it, all the way out through the early September time frame."

The team has been trying to understand the thruster issues experienced during the docking of the Starliner to the ISS and has been executing tests on the ground to get to the bottom of the problems. Over the weekend, Stich said that the ground team planned to fire 27 of Starliner's thrusters in pulses to check performance is as expected.

During the briefing, Stich noted that the team had identified manual maneuvering as putting additional stress on the thrusters. As such, plans to perform manual flying of the Starliner between undocking and deorbit had been ditched.

The hot-fire test of Starliner's thrusters will also give managers an opportunity to assess its other issue, helium leaks.

Stich said: "It's been six weeks since we last checked the helium system … so we'll pressurize manifold by manifold and then hot-fire the thrusters. Then we'll get a chance to look at the helium leak rates and verify that the system is stable."

Considering the delays experienced just getting Starliner off the pad, a longer-than-planned stay at the outpost was not entirely unexpected, particularly since it affords engineers more time to investigate behavior not seen during ground tests.

However, despite the brave assertion by managers that the initial mission duration was only ever a minimum and the team has been able to gather bonus experience on what a long-duration mission might look like, only the most ardent Boeing apologist would insist it's going well.

Starliner has always been approved for a contingency return to Earth. Yesterday's briefing represented an admission that September was now looking like a possibility for a nominal return and that plans were changing due to those pesky thruster issues. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/07/26/starliner_stay_onboard_iss/