The Boeing CST-100 Starliner crew has received encouraging news regarding their return to Earth. Recently, ground tests of the spacecraft’s thrusters, which have kept it in space since early June, have been successfully completed. Boeing and NASA had been awaiting these tests to start planning for the craft’s journey back.
An update provided last week stated, “Ground testing of a Starliner Reaction Control System (RCS) thruster at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico is complete, and teams are now focusing on data reviews.” The purpose of the testing was to evaluate the degradation of the thrusters to understand why some were deactivated during flight and to assess the implications of potentially reactivating them for the Crew Flight Test.
The term “de-selected” indicates that certain thrusters failed to function. Leaks were discovered in the helium tanks that regulate the thrusters both before and during the Starliner launch, which contributed to various delays. Officials mentioned in a press conference last month that the spacecraft contains 70 hours of helium, although it only requires seven. While they indicated earlier this month that the Starliner could return to Earth immediately if necessary, they are not fully prepared for that scenario yet.
In their most recent update, NASA and Boeing suggested that a return flight could occur by the end of this month. However, the timeframe has become more uncertain as they stated, “Boeing and NASA engineers will proceed with thruster disassembly and inspections and work on finalizing the flight rationale to support readiness reviews for Starliner’s planned return to Earth with commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams in the upcoming weeks.”