NASA’s attempt to fly American astronauts on an American spacecraft – something that hasn’t happened since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011 – is facing a major test this weekend.
Over the past decade, billions of space entrepreneurs like Elon Musk have received a lot of attention. His company, SpaceX, has been launching payloads into low orbit on Earth for years, surpassing the rise of ballet and even space-going Tesla Roadster.
But in terms of people, the U.S. has relied on its main geopolitical competitor – Russia – to provide billions of dollars worth of taxi trips to the International Space Station.
That settlement could come to an end soon if a trial is launched at Cape Canaveral, Florida, as expected Friday morning. That’s when Boeing Co. hopes to fly their new spacecraft on its first flight to the ISS – a mission that could set the stage for human flight in 2020. (SpaceX, which also carries out missions with a team for NASA, completed a successful test mission of its new Crew Dragon ship in March.)
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner, which is scheduled to be built at 6:36 am, sits at the top of an Atlas V rocket built by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed. It is expected to dock with the ISS about 25 hours later and return early December 28 with a landing at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. While flying unmanned this time, it can carry as many as seven passengers – four more than the Apollo 11 spacecraft that went to the moon 50 years ago.
In 2014, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration brought together $ 6.8 billion worth of SpaceX and Boeing contracts to fly U.S. astronauts to the space station. Since then, both companies have delayed the commercial crew program more than two years later.
“In order for us to fly a team, we need to fly the team safely,” Kathy Lueders, NASA manager for the commercial crew program, said Tuesday at a news conference. “It doesn’t make sense for us to do it in a way that we won’t be comfortable with. ”
NASA has refused to set dates for manned missions, pending the outcome of test flights as the only set for Friday. For Boeing, a successful mission will rarely bring good news; the embattled company has been on fire since 2018 over their 737 Max program now. Two of the commercial planes crashed, killing 346 people.
Tomorrow’s Starliner flight will carry 595 pounds (270 kilograms) of cargo for the ISS crew – food, clothing, radiation detection equipment and a few holiday gifts, NASA officials said.
Also on board will be a trial mannequin named Rosie – wearing a red polka dot bandana – in a nod to Rosie the Riveter, the iconic production of women who picked up B-17 heavy bombers during World War II. The tool records data on the type of forces and situations that astronauts can expect while riding the Starliner.
Flying the Crew Dragon, SpaceX carried Ripley, a sensory anthropomorphic test device, named in honor of Sigourney Weaver’s character in the movie “Alien.”
Still, due to schedule uncertainty, NASA has begun talks with the Russian space agency about acquiring two additional sets of Soyuz missions in the fall of 2020 and spring 2021, according to Joel Montalbano, deputy manager space station program.
And even if NASA begins missions with a crew next year, the U.S. has said that astronauts from both countries will still fly the Soyuz spacecraft, Crew Dragon and Starliner, depending on the needs of the ISS crew and what vehicle which is about to launch.
Meanwhile, a NASA observer general reported last month that the agency pays an average of $ 90 million per seat for flying astronauts, compared to just $ 55 million for SpaceX. The report also revealed that NASA had paid an additional $ 287.2 million to Boeing, a major government defense contractor to change future launch schedules with a delay in the commercial crew program.
Boeing rejected the report’s decision on a $ 90 million seat price, but did not offer another cost figure. While Musk took to Twitter last month to express his harassment, SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
By Justin Bachman