At 01:34 Beijing time on June 7, 2024, the CFT "Interstellar Flight" manned spacecraft carrying two space veterans successfully docked with the forward port of the "Harmony" node module of the International Space Station, and finally completed the uplink work of the first manned flight of the "Interstellar Flight", and the mission was transferred to the docking and residency stage.
波音公司载人飞行测试任务（Crew Flight Test，CFT）“星际航班”（Starliner）搭载了2名美国航天员，包括指挥官巴里· E·威尔莫尔（Barry E. Wilmore）和驾驶员苏妮塔·林·威廉姆斯（Sunita Lyn Williams）。
According to the original plan, the mission lasted less than 10 days, and the return was repeatedly delayed due to five small helium manifolds/manifold leaks in the crew compartment (re-entry capsule) and a few engine failures in the service module attitude control system (RCS). At present, the ISS crew is well stocked, and the astronauts have no urgency to leave the space station, and according to the space station's space activity plan, the crew can return to the ground as late as mid-August. In mid-August, the International Space Station will send away the Russian Progress87 cargo spacecraft and then welcome the Progress MS-28 cargo spacecraft.
Previously, after ground assessment, the number of small-scale helium leaks in the five places in the crew compartment (return module) is very limited, and the spacecraft will have enough helium to meet the return needs, and the number of attitude control system (RCS) engine failures in the service module (propulsion module) has also been reduced to one, and if the failure point does not increase and the scale of the failure does not expand, the spacecraft can return safely. However, if there is more than one failure, the risk factor of the mission will be significantly increased, and for safety reasons, the possibility of accidents will be minimized by continuously extending the dwell time to conduct a comprehensive and detailed inspection and evaluation of the spacecraft.
These failures will significantly affect Starliner's plans for NASA's crew rotation mission to the International Space Station, and its optimistic expectations of certification by the end of 2024 and Starliner-1 in the first half of 2025 will inevitably be delayed.
Starliner is a new generation of reusable manned spacecraft developed by Boeing following the Apollo spacecraft, and its crew compartment can be reused 10 times. The spacecraft adopts a tandem two-cabin configuration, consisting of a crew cabin (return module) and a service module (propulsion module), of which the crew cabin adopts a conical structure, equipped with a docking mechanism nose cone cover and a heat-proof outsole, and the service module adopts a cylindrical structure, equipped with 4 escape engines, 28 attitude control engines and solar wings.
The Starflight spacecraft is 5.03 meters high, with a crew compartment diameter of 4.56 meters and a launch mass of 13.2 tons. The spacecraft can carry up to 7 passengers, and it is planned to carry 4 passengers when performing NASA crew rotation missions, and it can also be mixed with passengers and cargo. The spacecraft has 60 hours (2.5 days) of independent flight and 210 days (7 months) docking flight capability, and the recovery and reuse cycle is 6 months.
Author: Mulan Xingzhou