Boeing’s Starliner capsule is experiencing some issues in orbit.
After launching yesterday (June 5) on its first-ever crewed mission, Starliner missed its first chance to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) today (June 6) after four of its 28 reaction-control thrusters malfunctioned.
That first docking window was at 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT). The next opportunity for Starliner to rendezvous with the orbiting lab opens at 1:33 p.m. EDT (1733 GMT).
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“Starliner, Houston, on the big loop. Just be advised, looks like you’re doing great flying there in the hold box,” NASA CAPCOM (capsule communicator) Neal Nagata radioed to the Starliner crew. “We lost the first docking window. We’re still analyzing all the data in getting a path to approach for the next docking window.”
Related: Boeing Starliner’s 1st astronaut mission: Live updates
Starliner’s current mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), is sending NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS for a roughly week-long stay. If all goes well with CFT, Starliner will be certified to fly long-duration astronaut missions to the orbiting lab for NASA.
Boeing received a $4.2 billion contract to do just this back in 2014. SpaceX got one as well, worth $2.6 billion. Elon Musk’s company flew its version of CFT, known as Demo-2, in 2020 and is in the middle of its eighth operational crewed mission to the ISS.
Starliner’s thruster issues followed two helium leaks the mission team detected after the capsule reached orbit. A different helium leak cropped up before launch as well, but was not regarded as a serious problem.
