The crew of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner received encouraging news about their return. Earthbound testing of the spacecraft’s thrusters, which have stranded it in space since early June, has been completed. Boeing and NASA were waiting for these tests to finish before planning the return journey.
“Ground testing of a Starliner Reaction Control System (RCS) thruster at White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico is complete, and teams are now focusing on data reviews,” stated an update last week. “The objective was to observe thruster degradation to understand why some thrusters were deactivated in-flight and to assess any potential impacts of reactivating them for the Crew Flight Test.”
By “deactivated,” officials mean that some thrusters stopped working. Tanks containing helium, necessary for thruster control, were leaking before and during the Starliner launch, causing multiple delays. At a press conference last month, officials mentioned the spacecraft has 70 hours of helium onboard, although it only needs seven hours. Despite indicating earlier this month that the craft could return if necessary, they stated they’re not yet ready for it to do so.
In the last update, NASA and Boeing mentioned a return flight might take place at the end of this month. Now, the timeline is less specific: “Boeing and NASA engineers will proceed with thruster disassembly and inspections, and move forward with finalizing flight rationale to support readiness reviews for Starliner’s planned return to Earth with commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams in the coming weeks.”