Boeing’s Starliner Successfully Docks to the International Space Station

The future of humanity just took a huge step forward tonight with the successful docking of Boeing’s new passenger spacecraft, CST-100 Starliner, after years’ worth of delays and failures in development.

NASA has put a lot of faith in Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which will be used for transporting astronauts around the International Space Station. Before anyone can board this revolutionary spaceplane though they must first pass an uncrewed test flight called OFT-2 or Orbital Flight Test 2 . This crucial exam consists of hitting all major milestones that are necessary during crew rides into orbit including docking at our satellite network Milestone #4 – Taking off from Landing gear down position & landing back onto the ground after completing mission objectives have been completed successfully.

With the successful launch and docking of Boeing’s new capsule, we’ve seen its ability to transport passengers into space. This mission  had some trouble  last year with software glitches that prevented them from reaching its destination in orbit around Earth—the International Space Station (ISS).

Just two and a half years after its inception, Starliner’s first-ever docking has been completed. Using sensors on board the capsule as well as some help from NASA technicians back home in America, who monitored everything via live streaming; it was able to autonomously guide itself towards an open port right beside where they should be docked at SpaceX’s International Space Station (ISS). “This is what we’ve all been waiting for,” said Steve Siceloff, a communications representative for Boeing.

After yesterday’s reveal of issues with Starliner’s thrusters, there was some concern about whether or not it could dock at the International Space Station. Thankfully we now know that this will not be an issue for our astronauts who have been training hard and are ready to go up against whatever challenges come their way!
The launch went off without a hitch—and even though they didn’t get too high before detaching from Atlas V, then firing the next stage into optimal orbit guaranteed safe arrival. However, after the maneuver took place two of Starliner’s 12 thrusters failed and cut off too early. This caused problems for their flight control system which rerouted to a working turbopump that helped get them into orbit safely.

The Boeing Starliner crew took to the skies again this week with their new engines, but there were some technical difficulties. “There’s really no need for them,” said Steve Stich from  NASA about these issues during a press conference after launch day 2 where he also noted that everything would be okay because “we’ll go look at data and try to understand what happened.” Boeing has revealed that a drop in chamber pressure had caused the early cutoff of one thruster, but they were able to successfully perform follow-up burns with another set on board. This issue does not pose any risk for future flight tests. Boeing is investigating a weird behavior of the thermal cooling loop on Starliner, but they say temperatures were stable. Starliner will be docked to the space station for four more days, and tomorrow morning an astronaut onboard planned to give it a once-over before the return trip.

Once the capsule is out of range from the space station, it will use its thrusters to return home. The two failing engines are just not enough to affect the deorbiting maneuver. NASA and Boeing don’t seem too concerned about them. Stich said they’ll have to see if their recovery efforts are successful, but noted that Boeing has options for when the task becomes too difficult. The spacecraft’s thrusters can be used and there is plenty of redundancy in this space capsule.

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The Starliner team has reached a major milestone in its mission to bring people into space. “Today marks an important step towards commercial access to low Earth orbit,” said astronaut Bob Hines, currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS).