Boeing to do second test flight without astronauts with Starliner capsule

Boeing will make a second flight with the Starliner capsule before taking astronauts to the ISS. The company does this after the first test flight partially failed. With the new flight, vulnerabilities in the software should be solved.

Boeing wants to conduct a second Orbital Flight Test, similar to the previous test that took place at the end of last year. The OFT-2 will probably get the same flight targets as the first test. That means the capsule must enter orbit, dock with the International Space Station and land safely back on Earth. In-flight experiments are also carried out with course corrections and other procedures that may be required during a flight. Boeing does not write when it wants to do the test.

Initially, the intention was that the second flight of the Starliner capsule would already have astronauts on board. The first test flight in December went wrong when the capsule ended up in a wrong Earth orbit. The capsule was supposed to move itself from a suborbital to an orbital orbit with its own engines, but that went wrong due to a bug in the software. As a result, the capsule was unable to reach the International Space Station. The evaluation also revealed a second “near catastrophic” software flaw in the capsule. NASA therefore wanted Boeing to conduct more tests with the capsule. Now the company writes that this is a flight test and not just a ground test. That was in line with expectations.

Boeing itself had already counted on a second flight test. In January, the company said it was already setting aside $410 million to cover the financial consequences. The development of the Starliner capsule has been delayed for a long time. Initially, Boeing had hoped to be able to launch astronauts into space by 2019. The company is developing a commercial capsule for manned space travel alongside other companies such as SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. This is done on behalf of NASA, which wants to become less dependent on Russia in this way.