Boeing

Boeing

Boeing

Eric Berger

Eric Berger

Eric Berger

Eric Berger



Eric Berger

Last October, during a White House Frontiers Conference in Pittsburgh, President Obama sat down in a simulator of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which will begin transporting astronauts to the International Space Station within a couple of years. The commander-in-chief wanted to try his hand at a task astronauts would eventually have to perform. After taking the controls and cleanly docking to the station, Obama gleefully exulted, “Your ride is here, baby."

So when I sat down in the same simulator on a recent Friday morning at the FIRST Robotics Competition in Houston, I felt a little pressure to match the president's success. Even though this simulator has been "dumbed" down for the general public from the real thing, it still wasn't trivial to guide the Starliner, nose first, into a docking port on the station's Node 2 module.

Fortunately, I had an experienced hand in the copilot's seat in the person of Dan Nelson. He is Boeing's guidance, navigation, and control technical lead engineer and has worked extensively to develop the systems that allow Starliner to safely fly to the station. As we moved toward the international laboratory at a fraction of a meter per second, Nelson gave me advice on controlling the spacecraft during its approach. A little more thrust. Move up. That kind of thing.

After we nailed the docking—saving the station from billions of dollars in damage and myself from humiliation—Nelson still chided me a bit. "These kids," he said, looking around at the milling students participating in the robotics competition, "are pretty good at this without any help. Especially the ones who play Kerbal Space Program."

Getting ready for flight

In 2014 both Boeing and SpaceX won contracts from NASA to develop commercial crew spacecraft that would ferry astronauts to the ISS and end NASA's dependence on Russia for such transportation services. At the time, NASA had hoped those flights could begin by the end of this year, but now they will slip into 2018 or even 2019 due to technical troubles.

Nevertheless, Boeing has made progress, both with the integration of the spacecraft (hundreds of components, made by a multitude of contractors, must be put together and tested extensively) and other aspects of its development, including limiting the impacts of orbital debris. The company also believes it has solved acoustic issues related to turbulence during its launch aboard an Atlas V rocket.

Boeing is moving forward with other aspects of the launch not directly involving the spacecraft, too. Last August the company installed a 50-foot, 90,000-pound "crew access arm" at Space Launch Complex-41 in Florida, which astronauts will walk across to climb inside the Starliner for flight. Boeing has also installed, or soon will, training devices at Johnson Space Center for the astronauts. These include crew part-task trainers that provide a more detailed simulation of mission phases and flight conditions than the public simulator. The company is also finalizing a full-scale, high-fidelity simulator to train astronauts on all aspects of the flight, including emergency egress.

Finding pizzazz

The public display of the flight simulator comes as Boeing has made a concerted push to publicize the development of its Starliner spacecraft. This represents a new challenge for Boeing, a traditional aerospace contractor that in recent years has had to grapple with the rise of flashier new space companies, such as SpaceX.

Whereas Elon Musk and SpaceX have proven masterful at garnering public attention and adoration for their efforts, Boeing has historically let NASA take credit for its work. But the commercial crew program is funded differently from NASA's traditional cost-plus contracts. NASA will pay less money for Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Dragon capabilities, but the companies will retain control of the spacecraft and will be able to use them for commercial opportunities that arise.

So during the last year, Boeing has made efforts to add pizzazz to the Starliner. There was President Obama's use of the simulator last October, and the machine is visiting a handful of conferences, like the FIRST Robotics event in Houston. The company has also cultivated a relationship with Stephen Colbert, who helped roll out the company's new blue spacesuit.

Boeing has had some success with its effort, but it has been difficult to match the attention SpaceX has received for its accomplishments of late—particularly launching and landing a reused rocket. But for both companies, the real publicity prize will come along with the first launch of US astronauts from US soil since the space shuttle's retirement in 2011. Not only will this be the first time a private company has sent humans into orbit, it will also be a mom-and-apple-pie moment for the country in a patriotic sense. For this, Boeing remains locked in a race with SpaceX to reach the launch pad first, and the race remains too close to call.

Listing image by Boeing