![]() Nappi added that integrated systems “performed extremely well” and there are four open areas still to be addressed or changed prior to CFT. ![]() A total of 252 Flight Test Objectives were planned during the mission and teams plan to submit their final report tomorrow. Three months later, at today’s media conference, Mark Nappi, Boeing vice president and CST-100 Starliner program manager, outlined his happiness with the observed performance of OFT-2. Rosie the Rocketeer, pictured in her couch aboard Starliner. The spacecraft returned safely to Earth on 25 May, touching down at White Sands at 4:49 p.m. Starliner docked autonomously at the ISS the next day and was accessed and unloaded by the Expedition 67 crew. Aboard Starliner was “Rosie the Rocketeer”, an anthropometric instrumented dummy, clad in Boeing’s blue launch and entry suit, together with 500 pounds (225 kilograms) of NASA cargo and 300 pounds (135 kilograms) of Boeing cargo. EDT on 19 May, rising atop an Atlas V from storied Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. Photo Credit: Jeff Seibert/AmericaSpaceĪt long last, the mission got underway at 6:54 p.m. Despite the disappointment of an incomplete mission, OFT-1 successfully trialed Starliner’s propulsion systems, communications systems, Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC), the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) and-via a series of in-flight extension/retraction tests-the NASA Docking System (NDS). human-rated capsule to touch down on solid ground when it landed via a combination of parachutes and airbags at White Sands Space Harbor, N.M. But soon after reaching orbit, Starliner suffered an automated timing issue which obliged flight controllers to call off its ISS docking and it returned to Earth a couple of days later. Boeing won a $4.2 billion “slice” of NASA’s Commercial Crew contract back in September 2014 and launched the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test (OFT)-1 to the ISS in December 2019. This unsettled crewing picture for CFT has been mirrored by an unsettled couple of years for the CST-100 Starliner program itself. Per the August 2018 announcement, Williams was originally slated to command the first “operational” crew rotation flight, Starliner-1, also known as Post-Certification Mission (PCM)-1.īarry “Butch” Wilmore (left) and Mike Fincke pose before the Atlas V booster being prepared for OFT-2. At that point, NASA announced that Wilmore would retain his place in command of the mission but would be joined by veteran ISS commander and America’s second most experienced female spacewalker, Suni Williams. Wilmore and Fincke continued training for CFT until June of this year. Mann’s departure meant that none of the original CFT line-up from August 2018 will now end up flying the mission. Just last October, NASA announced that Mann was also being rotated out of CFT to command Crew-5, shifting her focus from the CST-100 Starliner over to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Photo Credit: Mike Killian/AmericaSpaceīut still more changes were afoot. None of them will now fly the coveted first mission, although Mann may be aboard the ISS when Starliner arrives in February. Named in August 2018, the original CFT crew consisted of (from left) Eric Boe, Chris Ferguson and Nicole Mann.
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