Boeing’s Starliner Crewed Launch Postponed Indefinitely Due to Parachute and Fire Safety Issues

Boeing’s first Starliner flight with astronauts has been postponed again, this time indefinitely. Two major problems have been found in the parachute suspension and the fire safety of the capsule, which has been delayed and plagued for years.

NASA and Boeing to write that Starliner’s first crewed launch will not take place in July. Boeing was supposed to send two astronauts to the International Space Station with the Starliner for the first time on July 21, but that is canceled. During the safety certification, two problems were discovered with the capsule. Boeing needs time to fix it. Boeing has no idea when that will be. During a press conference, Starliner program manager Mark Nappi did not want to give a clear answer. Journalists asked him if there might be another launch this year. Nappi says that’s “reasonable,” but doesn’t want to commit to a time frame. With that, it seems that the launch has been postponed indefinitely.

Starliner’s first major problem is in the suspension of the parachute system that brings the capsule back to Earth. The suspension would have a lower load limit than previously thought. Starliner comes down with three parachutes. NASA requires that the capsule must always be able to land with at least two or three parachutes. According to Boeing, the suspension could potentially cause problems if one of the three parachutes fails. The suspension could then break sooner than expected if the two remaining parachutes have to support more weight.

Starliner’s parachutes have always been one of the parts that required a lot of tinkering. In 2019, there were already problems when a parachute failed to deploy during a padabort test. However, nothing was wrong with the suspension of the parachutes before. In addition, the parachutes were a problem, but not the main one.

A second vulnerability is in a certain fire-resistant material in the capsule. P-213 fiberglass wool is used for protection in “several hundred feet” of cables inside the capsule, but according to Boeing, it could catch fire “in certain cases during a flight.” That material needs to be replaced, but that will take a long time.

Boeing wants to determine in the coming weeks how long the repairs will take. In any case, it will probably be a very long time before Starliner can make its first manned flight. A NASA advisory committee last week recommended a closer look at the entire Starliner program by external experts. The space agency has not yet made a decision on this, but such an external investigation is likely to take a lot of time.

The Starliner program is one of two programs launched by NASA in 2014. Two companies were awarded billion-dollar contracts to make crew capsules that could send astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX received money to build the Crew Dragon, which is now successfully used for such flights. Boeing received $ 4.2 billion for Starliner, but that program has only made two unmanned test flights so far, where a lot went wrong. Last year, Starliner reached the space station for the first time, but without astronauts on board. Tweakers previously wrote a background article about the problems with the Starliner.