NASA inspector general suggests Boeing’s Starliner will now be a decade late

美国国家航空航天局（NASA）监察长指出：波音“星际客机”项目现已延期十年

NASA’s inspector general released an audit Tuesday of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, and it looks increasingly likely that Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule won’t be certified for operational flights to the International Space Station until next year. That’s just three years before NASA’s official retirement date for the ISS in 2030, though lawmakers in Congress are seeking an extension until 2032. What’s more, declaring Starliner ready for regular crew rotation flights next year would put the Boeing crew capsule a decade behind its original target of 2017.

美国国家航空航天局（NASA）监察长周二发布了一份关于该机构“商业载人航天计划”（Commercial Crew Program）的审计报告。报告显示，波音公司的“星际客机”（Starliner）载人飞船极有可能要到明年才能获得前往国际空间站（ISS）执行任务的认证。这距离NASA原定的2030年国际空间站退役日期仅剩三年，尽管美国国会议员们正在寻求将其延长至2032年。更重要的是，如果“星际客机”明年才能宣布具备执行常规乘组轮换任务的能力，那么该飞船将比其最初设定的2017年目标整整晚了十年。

The inspector general issued six recommendations. NASA officials agreed to all of them. The recommendations include developing a schedule for the next Starliner flight and future crew missions and making sure the schedule is updated to include sufficient time to ensure all of the problems from Starliner’s first test flight with astronauts in 2024 are “resolved and documented.”

监察长提出了六项建议，NASA官员均表示同意。这些建议包括：为下一次“星际客机”飞行任务及未来的载人任务制定时间表，并确保该时间表留有充足的时间，以保证2024年“星际客机”首次载人试飞中出现的所有问题都能得到“解决并记录在案”。

In an appendix to the report, NASA officials wrote that they expect to complete these tasks by December 31. The schedule for the launch of the next Starliner mission—now a cargo flight designated Starliner-1—was left unsaid. NASA’s official schedule for missions visiting the ISS indicates the Starliner-1 launch date is “under review.” But the odds of launching Starliner-1 before 2027 look to be diminishing if NASA anticipates it will take until the end of the year to resolve all of the spacecraft’s technical issues and establish a schedule.

在报告的附录中，NASA官员写道，他们预计将在12月31日前完成这些任务。关于下一次“星际客机”任务（现已改为代号为Starliner-1的货运飞行）的发射时间表并未提及。NASA官方的国际空间站访问任务时间表显示，Starliner-1的发射日期处于“审查中”。但如果NASA预计需要到今年年底才能解决所有技术问题并确定时间表，那么在2027年之前发射Starliner-1的可能性似乎正在降低。

Ars has extensively covered Starliner’s technical problems before. Managers reported approximately 100 in-flight anomalies and “observations” on the spacecraft’s Crew Flight Test in 2024, during which Starliner ferried NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station for what was supposed to be an eight-day stay. They ended up staying nine months after NASA determined the capsule was not reliable enough to bring the crew back to Earth. Wilmore and Williams instead returned home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

Ars此前已对“星际客机”的技术问题进行了广泛报道。管理人员报告称，在2024年的载人飞行测试中，该飞船出现了约100起飞行异常和“观察事项”。当时，“星际客机”将NASA宇航员布奇·威尔莫尔（Butch Wilmore）和苏尼·威廉姆斯（Suni Williams）送往国际空间站，原计划停留八天。但由于NASA认定该飞船不足以安全地将宇航员送回地球，他们最终被迫滞留了九个月，并改乘SpaceX的“载人龙飞船”（Crew Dragon）返回地球。

The investigations into most of the anomalies and observations have been closed, according to a briefing by NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel on June 22. But the big ones—Starliner’s helium leaks and overheating control thrusters—remain under investigation, said Kent Rominger, a former Space Shuttle commander and member of NASA’s independent safety panel. “Parachute anomalies remain a risk that requires continued monitoring,” the inspector general reported Tuesday. “These unresolved technical issues were driven by NASA’s and Boeing’s overconfidence in Boeing’s use of heritage systems, an unachievable schedule, and limited flight simulation data,” the inspector general said.

根据NASA航空航天安全咨询小组6月22日的简报，大部分异常和观察事项的调查已经结束。但前航天飞机指令长、NASA独立安全小组成员肯特·罗明格（Kent Rominger）表示，重大问题——即“星际客机”的氦气泄漏和控制推进器过热问题——仍在调查中。监察长周二报告称：“降落伞异常仍然是一个需要持续监测的风险。这些未解决的技术问题源于NASA和波音公司对波音使用传统系统过于自信、时间表无法实现以及飞行模拟数据有限。”

NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX contracts in 2014 to develop the Starliner and Crew Dragon vehicles to transport astronauts to and from the ISS. At the time, the US space agency relied solely on Russia’s Soyuz vehicle for crew transportation after the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet in 2011. Boeing and SpaceX said they expected to begin flying crews to the station for six-month expeditions beginning in 2017.

2014年，NASA授予波音和SpaceX合同，用于开发“星际客机”和“载人龙飞船”，以运送宇航员往返国际空间站。当时，在2011年航天飞机机队退役后，美国航天局完全依赖俄罗斯的“联盟号”（Soyuz）飞船进行人员运输。波音和SpaceX当时表示，预计从2017年开始，将开始为空间站执行为期六个月的载人考察任务。

After some delays, NASA certified SpaceX’s Crew Dragon for regular crew rotation missions in 2020. Meanwhile, Boeing’s Starliner ran into repeated delays. An unpiloted test flight in December 2019 failed to reach the space station, aborted its mission, and came home early. A second test flight in May 2022 achieved its major objectives, leading to the Crew Flight Test in 2024, itself delayed an extra year to allow Boeing to redesign part of the spacecraft’s parachute system and remedy a flammability issue inside Starliner’s crew cabin.

经过一些延误后，NASA于2020年认证了SpaceX的“载人龙飞船”可执行常规乘组轮换任务。与此同时，波音的“星际客机”却屡遭延误。2019年12月的一次无人试飞未能抵达空间站，任务被迫中止并提前返回。2022年5月的第二次试飞实现了主要目标，从而促成了2024年的载人飞行测试，而这次测试本身又额外推迟了一年，以便波音重新设计飞船的部分降落伞系统，并解决“星际客机”乘员舱内的易燃问题。

When it became clear that Starliner faced even more delays after the Crew Flight Test (CFT), NASA officials stripped Boeing of two of the six guaranteed crew rotation missions it received under the original 2014 contract, reducing the value of Boeing’s contract by some $500 million. One of the remaining four flights originally slated for crew transportation is now a cargo-only mission. NASA awarded SpaceX additional missions with its Crew Dragon spacecraft to keep the space station fully staffed as Starliner faltered. The inspector general said the agency will have to purchase additional SpaceX flights to cover the station’s crew transportation needs through 2030.

在载人飞行测试（CFT）后，“星际客机”面临更多延误的情况变得明朗时，NASA官员取消了波音在2014年原始合同中获得的六次保证乘组轮换任务中的两次，使波音的合同价值减少了约5亿美元。原定用于载人运输的剩余四次飞行任务中，现在有一项已改为纯货运任务。随着“星际客机”项目受挫，NASA授予了SpaceX额外的“载人龙飞船”任务，以确保空间站人员充足。监察长表示，NASA将不得不购买更多的SpaceX飞行任务，以满足空间站到2030年的人员运输需求。

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman formally classified the 2024 crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft as a “Type A” mishap in February, acknowledging that the test flight was a serious failure. Two of NASA’s senior human spaceflight officials left their posts later that month. The inspector general reported that “ambiguity in NASA requirements and delays in the appropriate mishap classification hindered the resolution of CFT issues.”

NASA局长贾里德·艾萨克曼（Jared Isaacman）在2月正式将2024年“星际客机”的载人飞行归类为“A类”事故，承认此次试飞是一次严重的失败。当月晚些时候，NASA两名高级载人航天官员离职。监察长报告称，“NASA需求的不明确以及事故分类的延迟，阻碍了CFT（载人飞行测试）问题的解决。”

While agreeing with NASA’s decision to fly only cargo on the next Starliner mission, the inspector general wrote that a flight without astronauts would not satisfy all of the agency’s human-rating certification milestones. It also means NASA will have to buy an additional crew transportation mission to cover the services Starliner-1 would have originally provided. This will cost approximately $300 million. “This decision increases NASA’s costs to maintain a crewed ISS, along with compounding the ongoing delays with certifying the Starliner and reducing the number of contracted crew flights NASA has under (the Commercial Crew contract),” the inspector general wrote.

虽然监察长同意NASA在下一次“星际客机”任务中仅执行货运的决定，但他写道，不搭载宇航员的飞行将无法满足该机构所有的载人认证里程碑。这也意味着NASA将不得不购买额外的载人运输任务，以弥补Starliner-1原本应提供的服务，这将耗资约3亿美元。监察长写道：“这一决定增加了NASA维持载人国际空间站的成本，同时也加剧了‘星际客机’认证的持续延误，并减少了NASA在（商业载人合同）下签约的载人飞行次数。”