Boeing’s Starliner tablet lands in White Sands, New Mexico on Would possibly 25, 2022 to finish the OFT-2 challenge.
NASA TV
Boeing landed its uncrewed Starliner spacecraft within the New Mexico desolate tract on Wednesday, finishing a a very powerful take a look at flight as the corporate prepares to hold astronauts.
Starliner landed on the U.S. Military’s White Sands Missile Vary, after previous within the day leaving the Global House Station – concluding the six-day Orbital Flight Take a look at 2, or OFT-2 challenge.
The challenge finished one among its maximum essential take a look at targets, achieving the ISS and docking effectively. OFT-2 marks a crucial construction milestone in Boeing’s construction of Starliner, which has run into a number of hindrances and delays over the last 3 years.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is noticed ahead of docking with the Global House Station on Would possibly 20, 2022 all the way through the uncrewed OFT-2 challenge.
NASA
Boeing has been growing its Starliner spacecraft beneath NASA’s Industrial Workforce program, having gained just about $5 billion in contracts to construct the tablet. The corporate competes beneath this system in opposition to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which finished construction of its Workforce Dragon spacecraft and is now on its fourth operational human spaceflight for NASA.
The aerospace large used to be as soon as noticed as frivolously matched with SpaceX within the race to release NASA astronauts. But the delays to Starliner’s construction have frequently set Boeing again, each in agenda and price range. Because of the fixed-price nature of its NASA contract, Boeing absorbed the price of further paintings at the tablet and has spent $595 million thus far.
Boeing’s subsequent Starliner challenge is anticipated to be the Workforce Flight Take a look at, or CFT, flying the primary astronauts onboard the tablet. Alternatively, the corporate is analyzing whether or not to revamp the Aerojet Rocketdyne-made propulsion valves on Starliner, which malfunctioned all the way through the corporate’s first try to release the OFT-2 challenge in August 2021.
