summary
- Boeing executives have made few public comments about the company’s Starliner spacecraft in the past six weeks.
- The capsule returned to Earth without any crew on Saturday, ending a trouble-plagued test flight.
- Boeing representatives did not attend a scheduled post-landing briefing.
Just over an hour after Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft returned empty to Earth, NASA held its regular post-landing briefing to discuss the conclusion of the eventful test flight.
Conspicuous by the absence of any Boeing representatives at the event early Saturday morning.
In fact, the last time Boeing representatives attended a press conference about the Starliner program was in late July, when the capsule was experiencing hardware issues that caused it to stay a few weeks longer than planned at the International Space Station, and questions were swirling about whether the two NASA astronauts who had been sent into orbit aboard the Boeing-built spacecraft would be able to return home safely.
NASA officials say they are working closely with Boeing, but the company’s absence from the event and limited public statements have raised questions about its commitment to transparency and the future of the Starliner program.
Boeing did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the change in the company’s name recognition.
Ahead of a post-landing news conference held last week at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA’s public advisory included the names of two Boeing executives who will be participating.
Eric Berger, a senior editor at Ars Technica, was there. Written About X Shortly before the press conference began, two chairs were removed from the podium, in what appeared to be a last-minute change in configuration.
Joel Montalbano, NASA’s associate administrator for Space Operations Mission Directorate, Asked about Boeing’s absence During the briefing
“We spoke to Boeing prior to this, and they gave NASA the concession to represent them on this mission,” he said.
A few days later, in response to a question from NBC News, a NASA spokesperson referred Montalbano to his response at the press conference.
Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for Boeing’s commercial crew programs, instead attended the briefing. A statement on the company’s website.
“I commend the Starliner team for their hard work in ensuring a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry, and landing,” he wrote. “We will review the data and determine next steps for the program.”
Boeing said the capsule would be transported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where engineers would analyze the flight data. No other details about the spacecraft’s status were released.
Starliner launched astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station in early June. The capsule’s first manned test flight was scheduled to last about eight days. However, a helium leak from the spacecraft’s propulsion system and a thruster failure while docking with the space station kept Starliner and its crew in space for months.
NASA held several media briefings over the summer to provide updates on the ongoing investigation into the thruster issue and how its findings might affect the remainder of the flight. Initially, NASA and Boeing officials attended the briefings jointly, but no Boeing representatives were present at the August press conference.
That month, NASA was considering how and when to return Wilmore and Williams safely. Asked why Boeing was absent from most of the briefings in August, NASA officials said the updates were for NASA consideration and therefore no company representatives were included.
On August 24, NASA announced it would ask SpaceX to return the astronauts and fly Boeing’s Starliner back to Earth without a crew member. The pair will stay on the space station until February, after which they will return with the next ISS crew.
in X Statement In response to NASA’s decision, Boeing wrote: “Our focus remains first and foremost on the safety of our crew and spacecraft. We are conducting the mission in accordance with NASA’s decision and are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”
The Starliner spacecraft ultimately returned safely to Earth, landing at White Sands Spaceport in New Mexico just after midnight on Saturday.
The manned test flight was intended to demonstrate that Boeing could reliably transport astronauts to the space station and pave the way for NASA to approve regular flights to the orbital laboratory.
Boeing developed the Starliner spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, an effort launched in 2011 to support privately built spacecraft to fill the gap left by NASA’s retired space shuttle fleet.
Even before its latest flight, the Starliner program was more than $1.5 billion over budget and years behind schedule: In 2019, an uncrewed test flight to the space station was canceled due to technical issues, forcing the company to wait until 2022 to try again.
Rival company SpaceX is developing its Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of the same program, with regular flights to the space station beginning in 2020. NASA has said it wants two private companies to certify such flights so it has redundant options for reaching low Earth orbit.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
