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Milestone flight of Boeing’s Starliner faces further delay

Boeing Starliner and Atlas V rocket on launch pad
Boeing’s Starliner space capsule sits atop its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket during preparations for launch. (ULA Photo)

Update for May 22: Mission managers say they are evaluating plans for the first crewed flight test of Boeing’s Starliner space taxi and are working toward a launch opportunity on June 1.

An initial attempt to send the gumdrop-shaped capsule and two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station had to be scrubbed on May 6 due to concerns about a fluttery pressure regulation valve on the Atlas V rocket’s upper-stage oxygen tank.

Starliner and the rocket were rolled back to the Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 41 in Florida. The valve was replaced on May 11 and passed a round of tests — but along the way, engineers detected a small helium leak that was traced to a flange on one of the Starliner service module’s thrusters.

The launch teams at Boeing and NASA determined that the leak was stable. Now they are working on a follow-on assessment of the propulsion system to understand the potential impacts of the helium system on some of the return scenarios for Starliner. That assessment will be evaluated during a flight test readiness review that hasn’t yet been scheduled.

The earliest opportunity for a second launch attempt is now 12:25 p.m. ET (9:25 a.m. PT) on June 1, with additional opportunities on June 2, 5 and 6. The launch teams had previously targeted May 21 and May 25 for liftoff.

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First crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner put on hold

Atlas V rocket with Starliner space taxi
Boeing’s Starliner space taxi sits atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on its Florida launch pad. (ULA Photo)

The first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner space taxi was postponed today due to concerns about a valve on the upper stage of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. It was the latest in a years-long string of delays for what’s expected to be a milestone mission for Boeing and commercial spaceflight.

Liftoff had been set for 10:34 p.m. ET (7:34 p.m. PT) today from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 in Florida. But launch managers called a hold with a little more than 2 hours left in the countdown, after NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams had already climbed into the capsule.

“The team has had some observations on an oxygen relief valve on our Centaur second stage, and the team is just not comfortable with the signatures that they’re seeing, the response out of that valve,” United Launch Alliance’s Dillon Rice said. “So, out of an abundance of caution, we are not going to continue with our launch operations today.”

The astronauts climbed out of the capsule and headed back to their quarters. Meanwhile, ULA engineers checked into the balky valve, which didn’t stay closed properly during preparations for launch and made a buzzing noise. The ULA team decided to replace the valve, which led mission managers to schedule the next launch attempt for no earlier than May 17.

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Blue Origin’s chief architect lifts the veil on moon startup

Gary Lai at Museum of Flight
Blue Origin chief architect Gary Lai speaks at the Pathfinder Awards banquet at the Museum of Flight. (Photo by Ted Huetter / Museum of Flight)

Gary Lai’s resume features his status as chief architect and pioneer spaceflier at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture — but when he received a Pathfinder Award this weekend at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, the veteran engineer highlighted a lesser-known job, as co-founder and chief technology officer of a moon-centric startup that’s still in stealth mode.

“We aim to be the first company that harvests natural resources from the moon to use here on Earth,” Lai told an audience of about 400 banquet-goers on Oct. 28. “We’re building a completely novel approach to extract those resources, efficiently, cost-effectively and also responsibly. The goal is really to create a sustainable in-space economy.”

The Tacoma, Wash.-based startup, called Interlune, has actually been around for about three years — but it’s been shrouded in secrecy long enough that Lai can still be considered a co-founder. Lai said the other founders include Rob Meyerson, who was Blue Origin’s president from 2003 to 2018; and Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, a geologist who set foot on the moon in 1972 and served in the U.S. Senate from 1977 to 1983.

Lai noted that Interlune recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation. That $246,000 grant supports efforts to develop a system that could sort out moon dirt by particle size.

Neither Lai nor Meyerson, who was in the audience cheering him on, was willing to say much more about Interlune, due to the fact that the venture is still in stealth. But a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicates that the venture raised $1.85 million in seed funding last year from five unnamed investors.

The SEC form also names longtime aerospace industry executive Indra Hornsby as an officer of the company, and lists Estes Park, Colo., as Interlune’s headquarters. However, Hornsby’s LinkedIn page says she’s currently an adviser and a former chief operating officer. Other documents indicate that Tacoma, Meyerson’s home base, has become Interlune’s HQ.

Lai said that he would continue to advise Blue Origin on a part-time basis, focusing on advanced concepts that include the Blue Moon lunar landing system. But going forward, Lai plans to give more attention to what humans will be doing on the moon after they land.

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Augmented-reality training system aces flight test

Augmented-reality view of virtual fighter jet
A computer-generated image of a fighter jet shows up on augmented-reality glasses. (Boeing Photo)

Boeing and an augmented-reality company called Red 6 have successfully flown and tested a virtual display system in a TA-4J Skyhawk tactical aircraft, in preparation for putting the system on a T-7 advanced training jet.

The system lets pilots see and interact with virtual aircraft, targets and threats on the ground and in the air, while also experiencing the stresses that come with physically flying their airplane. The idea is to provide pilots with a realistic training environment while minimizing the risks of getting hurt.

“Boeing is the first company to team with Red 6 on this type of advanced training technology,” Donn Yates, executive director of Boeing Air Force Fighters and Trainers Business Development, said today in a news release. “The successful series of ground tests and four flight sorties illustrate our collaborative ability to rapidly integrate, deliver and test new technology with the potential to change fighter pilot training for an entire generation.”

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Airlines join Boeing’s team to work on eco-friendly plane

Planned livery for X-66A airplane
X-66A Transonic Truss-Braced Wing aircraft

Boeing and NASA say they’ll collaborate with Seattle-based Alaska Airlines and four other major airlines on the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project, which aims to put Boeing’s innovative X-66 braced-wing aircraft design through flight tests in the 2028-2029 time frame.

The X-66A makes use of a concept known as the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing, or TTBW, which features ultra-long, ultra-thin, drag-reducing wings that are stabilized by diagonal struts.

The demonstrator aircraft will also incorporate parallel advancements in propulsion systems, materials and system architecture. When all those factors are combined, the single-aisle X-66A should reduce fuel requirements and carbon emissions by up to 30% relative to today’s domestic airplane fleet.

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Blue Origin’s team wins $3.4B from NASA for lunar lander

Illustration: Blue Moon lander on lunar surface
An artist’s conception shows the integrated design for the Blue Moon lander. (Blue Origin Illustration)

An industry team led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has won a $3.4 billion NASA contract to provide a second type of landing system for crewed as well as uncrewed lunar landings.

The decision announced today settles a years-long controversy over how astronauts would get to the moon’s surface: SpaceX’s Starship system would be used for the first two crewed landings during the Artemis 3 and 4 missions, currently scheduled for as early as 2025 and 2028. Blue Origin’s Blue Moon system would be used for Artemis 5, currently set for 2029.

All those missions would target the moon’s south polar region, which is thought to be one of the moon’s most promising places for long-term settlement. Both types of landers could be available to NASA for missions beyond Artemis 5.

“We are in a golden age of human spaceflight, which is made possible by NASA’s commercial and international partnerships,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the agency’s HQ in Washington, D.C. “Together, we are making an investment in the infrastructure that will pave the way to land the first astronauts on Mars.”

In a tweet, Bezos said he was “honored to be on this journey with NASA to land astronauts on the moon — this time to stay.”

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Boeing sends off its last 747 — but this isn’t the end

Boeing's last 747 on display at Everett factory
The last 747 jet looms in the background as Atlas Air CEO John Dietrich stands on stage at Boeing's Everett factory. (Boeing Photo)

Boeing gave its iconic 747 jumbo jet a grand sendoff today, marking the end of a 55-year era for airplane manufacturing but vowing that the “Queen of the Skies” will continue its reign for decades to come.

Thousands of onlookers — including past and present Boeing employees, customers, suppliers and VIPs — gathered at the company’s factory in Everett, Wash., for a ceremony marking the handover of Boeing’s last 747 to Atlas Air.

“We do not close this book,” Stan Deal, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told the crowd as the jet stood on the tarmac behind him. “It’s just a chapter. We’ll have another chapter of the 747. This airplane will be supported for decades to come, I promise you.”

Atlas Air will operate the 747-8 cargo freighter on behalf of Apex Logistics, a freight forwarder majority-owned by Switzerland’s Kuehne+Nagel Group.

Due to the evolution of the aviation industry, Boeing’s 747 jets have primarily been sold to cargo carriers in recent years. Smaller, more fuel-efficient jets such as the single-aisle 737 and the wide-body 777 and 787 Dreamliner are typically preferred nowadays for passenger service.

But back in 1968, when the first 747 rolled off Boeing’s assembly line, the jumbo design revolutionized airline service.

“We’re talking about one of the most important airplanes in all of history,” Mike Lombardi, senior corporate historian at Boeing, said in a video preview for today’s handover.

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Amazon and Boeing join Northwest’s quantum team

UW's Xinxin Tang and IonQ's Peter Chapman at Northwest Quantum Nexus Summit
IonQ CEO Peter Chapman shows off a quantum chip as University of Washington researcher Xinxin Tang looks on. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

It’s been almost four years since Pacific Northwest leaders in the field of quantum computing gathered in Seattle for the first Northwest Quantum Nexus Summit, and since then, the scientific buzz over quantum has only gotten buzzier. So what’s next for the Nexus? A star-studded second summit.

Amazon Web Services and Boeing are joining this week’s gathering at the University of Washington, and nearly 300 academic, business and government representatives have signed up to attend. Some of the companies showing up at the second summit — such as the Seattle startup Moonbeam Exchange — didn’t even exist when the first summit took place in March 2019.

Over the past four years, UW has received about $45 million in federal funding to support research into quantum information science. Quantum computing has gotten fresh boosts from Congress and the Biden administration. The Pacific Northwest’s two cloud computing powerhouses, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, have both rolled out hybrid quantum platforms. And just last week, Maryland-based IonQ announced that it’s setting up a research and manufacturing facility for quantum computers in Bothell, a Seattle suburb.

Microsoft, UW and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory got the ball rolling for the Northwest Quantum Nexus in 2019. IonQ, Washington State University and the University of Oregon’s Center for Optical, Molecular and Quantum Science joined the team a couple of years later. Now the addition of Amazon and Boeing brings two of the region’s tech giants into the fold.

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Boeing wins $425M from NASA for fuel-efficient plane

Illustration: Boeing TTBW airplanes in flight
An artist’s conception shows Boeing’s Transonic Truss-Braced Wing design in flight. (Boeing Illustration)

NASA says it’ll give Boeing $425 million over the next seven years for the development and flight testing of a new breed of fuel-efficient airplane with ultra-thin wings.

The innovative airplane design could produce fuel savings of up to 30%, and blaze the trail for the aviation industry’s effort to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. “If we are successful, we may see these technologies in planes that the public takes to the skies in the 2030s,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a news release.

Boeing’s Transonic Truss-Based Wing concept, or TTBW, involves building an aircraft with extra-long, extra-thin wings that spread over the top of the fuselage. Extra stabilization would be provided by diagonal struts attached beneath the fuselage.

One configuration calls for foldable wings that are 170 feet wide — which is 27 feet shorter than the wingspan of a 787 Dreamliner but 53 feet wider than the wingspan of a 737 MAX 8.

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The year in aerospace: Why 2022 could be Year One

Sparkly JWST view of galaxy NGC 7469
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope focuses on the galaxy NGC 7469. (ESA / Webb, NASA & CSA / L. Armus, A.S. Evans)

A few years from now, we just might look back at 2022 as Year One for a new age in aerospace: It was the year when NASA’s next-generation space telescope delivered the goods, when NASA’s moon rocket aced its first flight test, and when an all-electric passenger plane built from the ground up took to the skies.

I’ve been rounding up the top stories in space on an annual basis for 25 years now (starting with the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997), and 2022 ranks among the biggest years when it comes to opening up new frontiers on the final frontier. The best thing about these frontier-opening stories — especially the James Webb Space Telescope and the Artemis moon program — is that the best is yet to come.

Check out my top-five list for the big stories of the past year, plus five aerospace trends to watch in the year ahead.

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