Boeing Co. launched the first test flight of its Starliner space capsule from Florida on Friday, but the mission ran into problems roughly half an hour later and the vehicle won’t dock with the international space station as planned.
Liftoff of the specially-instrumented CST-100 vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, aboard an Atlas V rocket, is intended to chart the course for routine missions carrying National Aeronautics and Space Administration crews to and from the international space station.
On Friday, Starliner’s launch on its long-awaited trip into orbit without astronauts occurred without hitches and Starliner separated from the booster precisely as planned after roughly 15 minutes. But instead of powering up the capsule’s own engines roughly 15 minutes later to start raising its orbit as expected, controllers delayed the maneuver because they determined Starliner wasn’t in the proper orbit.
The capsule is now expected to return to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico as early as Sunday, said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at a news conference.
One hour after launch, NASA cut off its video feed after indicating the capsule was in a stable orbit and had electrical power. Flight controllers were “assessing all their options” and “contemplating the next maneuvers for the spacecraft,” NASA said.
As engineers assessed the problem and used onboard thrusters to try to correct the orbit, Bridenstine suggested the mission wouldn’t make it to the space station. In a message posted on Twitter two hours after the incident, Mr. Bridenstine said that as a result of an apparent spacecraft malfunction, the vehicle “burned more fuel than anticipated to maintain precise control.” He also indicated: “This precluded @Space Station rendezvous.”
The unexpected difficulty came after a seemingly flawless capsule separation from the rocket and made a congratulatory message from Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg seem premature. His message, posted before NASA gave out public information about the improper orbit, praised the Boeing team and United Launch Alliance, the joint venture that builds and operates the Atlas V launcher, for the “historic Starliner uncrewed launch.” The joint venture consists of Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Boeing shares were down 1.3% in late morning trade.
For Boeing, the launch came amid company struggles to deal with the crisis over its 737 MAX jetliner, which remains grounded after two fatal crashes that took 346 lives in less than five months. Some inside and outside Boeing had described Friday’s flight test as a chance to demonstrate the Chicago aerospace company’s technical prowess and ability to deliver on pledges to NASA.
Rival Space Exploration Technologies Corp., run by entrepreneur Elon Musk, previously completed a similar uncrewed test flight to the orbiting laboratory. But over the months, both companies have suffered ground explosions that delayed schedules for starting routine transport of astronauts in craft that what have been called first-generation commercial space taxis.
Current plans call for both companies to start those flights carrying crews in 2020, more than three years later than initially expected.
The Starliner capsule is carrying hundreds of pounds of cargo and a mannequin dubbed Rosie the Riveter. If all goes well, It will take nine days for the capsule to reach the space station, slowly use autonomous thrusters to dock with it, disengage and then return to a landing site in New Mexico using parachutes for the final descent.
Minutes before the launch at 6:36 a.m. local time, Chris Ferguson, the Boeing astronaut slated to fly on the first crewed mission, said on a NASA video feed that it was “almost surreal” to see the rocket ready to go after years of work and setbacks. “It’s game day,” he said, adding that the capsule’s big test will be to prepare for and then dock with the station. Roughly 10 minutes into the mission, the rocket’s upper-stage engines shut off as expected, followed by a normal separation of the capsule four minutes later that was greeted by applause from fight controllers.
The Boeing capsule has been plagued by budget and engineering challenges, including problems with its emergency escape and landing systems. Congressional investigators and NASA’s own inspector general have repeatedly questioned the agency’s timelines for launches with astronauts. They also have warned about unresolved safety questions, and urged the U.S. to ensure access to Russian rockets and capsules until Boeing and SpaceX, as Mr. Musk’s company is commonly called, are ready to take over crew transportation to the space station.
NASA retired its Space Shuttle fleet in 2011, with the eventual goal of replacing those reusable winged craft with commercially-operated reusable vehicles, reminiscent of 1960-era capsules that took astronauts into orbit. NASA is now negotiating with Kremlin officials to purchase a pair of seats on Russian missions as backstops to the agency’s delayed commercial crew program.
By most measures, Boeing’s will be more expensive than the roughly $81 million NASA pays for each Russian seat. But NASA and White House officials have stressed the importance of launching astronauts on domestically-built hardware from U.S. soil. NASA has committed more than $6 billion overall to accomplish that goal.
Initial crewed flights are slated by both companies in the first half of next year. Even as NASA faces many months of additional work to certify Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Dragon capsule for routine missions, Congress is moving to lock in U.S. funding for the space station to 2028 from the 2024 target supported by the Trump administration.
Boeing and SpaceX also are competing for NASA business to send astronauts to the moon by 2024.
Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com
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