It's been a very long time since the very first crewed mission of Starliner capsule by Boeing has been present in the orbit. Even after a month of being present in the orbit, a return date is not been public. This makes the whole world wonder a valid question- When exactly will the Starliner be back?
It was on June 5 when the Starliner was launched on Crew Flight Test (CFT). It carried astronauts from NASA, namely Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Stsation for a period of a week's stay. The trip, however, was not as smooth as it was expected. It faced thruster issues and helium leaks. The engineers are still stressing over the reasons behind these troubles. This implies that the departure for Starliner has not been cleared yet.
The manager of the Commercial Crew Program of NASA, Steve Stich attempts to give an explanation. "We're taking our time on the ground to go through all the data before we decide on the return opportunity," clarifies the manager at a press conference held on July 10.
Does this shake the confidence of people behind the Starliner? Not at all. A ray of hope is still there. This can be implied by the appreciation Wilmore had for the on-orbit abilities of the capsule in the operational checks. At the time of a separate media event on Wednesday, Wilmore said, "The spacecraft performed unbelievably well."
Wilmore also expressed the issues with the reaction control system (RCS) of Starliner. He talks about the thrusters during the chasedown of the ISS. He further expressed the manner in which the mission catered to them.
"We lost an RCS jet, and then another one, and then you could tell the thrust, the control, the capability, was degraded," the man expressed. "Thankfully, we had practiced, and we had gotten certified for manual control, and so we took over manual control for over an hour."
As far as the date of return is concerned, as per Stitch, the absolute latest Starliner may return with the two astronauts in mid-August.
"We're really working to try to follow the data and see when's the earliest that we could target for undock and landing," Stitch expressed.
"I think some of the data suggests, optimistically, maybe it's by the end of July, but we'll just follow the data each step at a time, and figure out when the right undock opportunity is."