LOGAN, Utah — Boeing has delayed the first flight of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle with astronauts on board to no earlier than March 2024 as the company continues to work on issues with the spacecraft’s parachutes and wiring.

Boeing and NASA officials said in an Aug. 7 media briefing that they are making good progress on those issues, which they revealed more than two months ago, but that they still have several more months of work to complete before the vehicle will be ready to carry NASA astronauts.

One problem has been with “soft links” in the parachutes that were weaker than expected, preventing the overall parachute system from achieving the factor of safety required for crewed flights. “That has been redesigned by the team. They’re in the middle of testing that design,” Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said on the call.

That testing will include a drop test scheduled for the latter half of November, said Mark Nappi, Boeing vice president and program manager for Starliner. That test will also verify an updated overall design for the parachute that had been intended for the first operational flight of Starliner, but will be pulled forward for this Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission.

Stich said a single test of the parachute will be sufficient, compared to a series of drop tests for a revision of parachutes during development of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. “When we looked at the changes that we’re talking about, we felt like we only needed one test” to verify those changes, he said, which he described as much less significant than the earlier SpaceX parachute changes. “The design changes were, what I would say, minimal as opposed to what we had for Dragon, which was really a wholesale change in the canopy.”

Technicians have also been removing a tape used on wiring harnesses called P-213 that is flammable in some environments. Stich said that entries in a NASA database were “a bit inconsistent” about the tape’s flammability that led to its use in environments where it could pose a hazard.

Workers have removed about 85% of the tape in the upper part of the spacecraft. In the lower part of the spacecraft, some tape is hard to remove or could cause damage if its removed, said Nappi. Engineers have developed protective barriers and coatings, or can wrap the P-213 tape with acceptable tape, to mitigate the flammability hazard. “Based on the area, we’ll apply the right remediation technique.”

Neither NASA nor Boeing announced a new launch date for the CFT mission, which will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station for a brief stay. Before the parachute and wiring tape problems were announced, NASA had been targeting a late July launch of the mission, which has already suffered extensive delays.

Nappi said the critical path for getting Starliner ready for flight will be the parachute work. “Right now, based on the current plans, we’re anticipating that we’re going to be ready with the spacecraft in early March,” he said.

That does not, he added, mean that the CFT launch will take place in March. He said Boeing will have to work with NASA on ISS schedules, as well as United Launch Alliance on Atlas 5 launch schedules, to set a date. “We’ll work that throughout the next several weeks and see where we can fit in, and then we’ll set a launch date.”

Stich noted that March is typically when Roscosmos performs crew rotations using its Soyuz spacecraft, which could limit CFT opportunities that month. “We have not taken the vehicle readiness and mapped it into when we can find a date” that works with both the station and ULA, he said. “That’s really the next step.”

The delay of CFT into at least the spring of 2024 could push back the first operational, or post-certification, mission to 2025. Stich said it was too early to determine when Starliner could fly that mission. He suggested that mission could fly around the end of 2024, although crew rotation missions on Crew Dragon spacecraft are currently launching in February and August. “We would like to fly it as soon as we can.”

Boeing’s Nappi reiterated the company’s commitment to fly its contracted series of six post-certification missions, roughly once a year through late in the decade, even as the company’s losses on the Starliner program exceed $1 billion. The ISS is scheduled for retirement around 2030, but Nappi said there was time in that schedule to fit in the six flights by the end of the decade. “There’s no reason to change our plans.”

NASA, meanwhile, emphasized its desire to have a second commercial crew provider, with Starliner alternating with Crew Dragon. “We’ve got plenty of flights for Boeing to go fly, and we’re in good shape,” Stich said.

citizen-times.com cannot provide a good user experience to your browser. To use this site and continue to benefit from our journalism and site features, please upgrade to the latest version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.

• Chrome: https://www.google.com/chrome/
• Edge: https://www.microsoft.com/edge/
• Firefox: https://www.firefox.com/
• Safari: Update to latest version through the App Store

GREENFIELD — It’s been 18 months in the making, but a Monarch Waystation in Greenfield now serves as a welcome layover for the colorful butterflies making their annual pilgrimage to Mexico and back again.

Local master gardener Bruce Matter set the plan in motion in early 2022, reaching out to fellow gardeners for help creating a nurturing habitat for the endangered species.

He dubbed the project Monarch 911.

Now an assortment of milkweed, cone flowers, lavender and other beneficial plants attract the butterflies to a garden designed specifically for them, in the green space outside the Purdue Extension Hancock County office in Greenfield.

On Thursday, July 27, extension educator Lais McCartney will present Matter and his fellow volunteers with a plaque designating the space as a certified Monarch Waystation recognized by Monarch Watch, a volunteer-based organization that tracks the fall migration of the monarch butterfly.

“I am proud of the work the Master Gardener volunteers in creating this waystation,” said McCartney, who said the endangered butterflies can use all the help they can get.

“Monarchs are the poster child of other native pollinators, especially regarding habitat loss,” she said. Protecting them protects the local ecosystem, she added, which in turn helps local wildlife flourish.

Matter grew increasingly concerned about the monarchs when he noticed a number of large-scale industrial and warehouse buildings popping up on the west side of Greenfield in accurate years.

“I felt really discouraged that all of a sudden Hancock County became urbanized, and there was no place for pollinators to go. The warehouses and urbanization didn’t leave any space for the bees and butterflies and all the insects to live,” he said.

Preserving the monarchs is essential to preserving the world as we know for future generations, said Matter, a Greenfield retiree with two grown children and two grandchildren.

“My kids attended Mt. Comfort Elementary (in the 1990s), and it was all open fields around there. Now it’s just a speck amid all the warehouses,” he said. “We have to strike a good balance between nature and progress, and unfortunately we didn’t do that over on the west side of Greenfield.”

According to Monarch Watch, sprawling development as well as the widespread use of herbicides on croplands, pastures and roadsides have been wiping out milkweeds and essential nectar sources since the monarch butterfly population was last thriving in the 1990s.

The nonprofit states development in the U.S. is taking over habitats for monarchs and other wildlife at a rate of 6,000 acres or 9.4 square miles each day — or 2.2 million acres each year

According to MonarchWatch.org, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies throughout Northern American take to the skies and head to the mountains of Central Mexico each fall. They are most commonly spotted throughout Indiana in August and September.

“The monarch migration is truly one of the world’s greatest natural wonders,” the website states, “yet it is threatened by habitat loss at overwintering grounds in Mexico and throughout breeding areas in the United States and Canada.”

The nonprofit encourages groups and individuals to take matters into their own hands by creating Monarch Waystations to provide the nectar and nourishment monarchs need to survive.

Matter reached out to fellow master gardeners in early 2022 to create a local waystation, and Monarch 911 was born.

Last September, the group hosted a public education session at the Hancock County Public Library in Greenfield, where experts shared tips on how to create a natural habitat for monarch butterflies and gardens gave away milkweed pods to help guests start their own backyard butterfly habitats.

Rushville resident Helen Steussy shared how she and her husband manage 33 acres of native meadow plants to support local pollinators.

“We got a lot of ideas and tips from her,” said Matter, who has helped distribute roughy 2,000 packets of milkweed seeds since Monarch 911 began.

A monarch information station has been set up in the Purdue Extension Hancock County office to teach the public about the importance of creating local habitats.

Matter is hoping an increasing number of local residents take on the challenge of planting a few plants and giving monarch butterflies a helping hand.

For more information on how to create a backyard habitat, visit MonarchWatch.org/waystations.