KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The upcoming launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner will mark not simply the primary time the spacecraft has carried astronauts but in addition the primary crewed launch of the Atlas 5, a automobile approaching its retirement.
The Crew Flight Check (CFT) mission stays on monitor for a launch at 10:34 p.m. Japanese Might 6. The Atlas 5 rocket carrying the Starliner spacecraft rolled out to the pad Might 4, with no technical points reported and favorable climate within the forecast.
The CFT mission marks the 100th flight of the Atlas 5, which made its debut in 2002. The mission, although, marks the primary time the rocket has carried astronauts.
United Launch Alliance has made just a few adjustments to the rocket to help crewed flights. That features including an emergency detection system that screens the launch automobile’s methods and feeds that info into Starliner in order that it could actually set off its abort system within the occasion of a rocket malfunction. This model of the Atlas 5 additionally makes use of a Centaur higher stage with two RL10 engines, a configuration not used on different missions however much like variations of Centaur beforehand flown on different launch autos and likewise used on ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.
There are few different adjustments to the rocket in comparison with these used for satellite tv for pc launches. “The automobile is just about a typical Atlas 5 automobile. It goes by way of the identical normal procedures and processes,” mentioned Gary Wentz, vice chairman of presidency and business packages at ULA, at a Might 3 briefing.
Certifying the Atlas 5 to hold NASA astronauts, although, required in depth work: between 11,000 and 12,000 particular person verifications of auto elements and processes, mentioned Ian Kappes, deputy supervisor of the Launch Automobile Methods Workplace for NASA’s Industrial Crew program, in an interview.
That meant going by way of paperwork from a long time in the past, when the rocket was being developed. “We actually needed to work with our ULA companions to go discover paperwork from 20 years in the past, to go in there and actually take a look at the info on Atlas 5 and Centaur,” he mentioned, together with one doc he described as containing hand calculations.
One explicit problem for that evaluation was getting information for the Russian-built RD-180s engines that energy the Atlas booster. “From the launch automobile workplace, the most important danger that we needed to settle for was that there’s solely a specific amount of perception that you just’re going to get,” he mentioned.
Kappes mentioned there’s not a selected danger metric that Atlas 5 needed to meet for a crewed flight, citing the necessity to stability making the automobile as protected as doable whereas recognizing that not all dangers could be eradicated. “It’s a case-by-case foundation,” he mentioned, working with ULA to evaluate particular dangers. “What can we do to deliver this down?”
“We’re attempting to be as protected as we could be,” he added, “however I can also’t crush our business companion. I can’t say I have to you might want to make this factor 100% protected as a result of then it’s not economical for them.”
After CFT, Boeing has a contract with NASA for six operational Starliner flights, all launching on Atlas 5. ULA, although, is not promoting the Atlas 5 as it really works to shift to the Vulcan Centaur, which means any extra Starliner missions, for NASA or different clients, would wish to maneuver to a different rocket like Vulcan.
“We’re persevering with to do totally different research” about human-rating Vulcan, ULA’s Wentz mentioned. He famous a lot of the {hardware} between Atlas and Vulcan is frequent, with the change from kerosene-fueled RD-180 engines to methane-fueled BE-4 engines the most important change.
Mark Nappi, vice chairman and program supervisor of Boeing’s business crew program, mentioned on the briefing that his firm had been working with ULA on human-rating Vulcan for Starliner. “That’s what we’ve been engaged on for the final yr and a half or so, simply understanding what’s it going to take,” he mentioned. “We’ve got a fairly good understanding of that now.”
Kappes mentioned his workplace is beginning to consider what can be wanted to certify not simply Vulcan but in addition different autos, like Blue Origin’s New Glenn, for crewed launches. “We’re undoubtedly trying forward,” he mentioned, capturing classes discovered from each Atlas 5 and Falcon 9. “My workforce would like to get their arms on some extra information from different autos.”
