WASHINGTON — NASA confirmed that Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft has suffered a fifth, although minor, helium leak in its propulsion system as engineers work to prepare the vehicle for its return to Earth next week.
In a June 10 statement, NASA mentioned that spacecraft teams were examining “what impacts, if any, five small leaks in the service module helium manifolds would have on the remainder of the mission.” That was the first reference to there being five leaks in the spacecraft; NASA had mentioned there were four in a briefing hours after the spacecraft’s June 6 docking with the International Space Station.
In a June 11 statement to SpaceNews, NASA spokesperson Josh Finch said the fifth leak was detected around the time of that post-docking briefing. “The leak is considerably smaller than the others and has been recorded at 1.7 psi [pounds per square inch] per minute,” he said.
NASA was aware of one leak at the time of Starliner’s June 5 launch, having been detected shortly after a scrubbed launch attempt May 6. At the time of launch, NASA and Boeing officials considered that a one-off problem, likely caused by a defect in a seal. However, hours after launch controllers said they had detected two more leaks, one of which was relatively large at 395 psi per minute, said Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, at the briefing.
A fourth leak was found after docking, although it was much smaller at 7.5 psi per minute. “What we need to do over the next few days is take a look at the leak rate there and figure out what we go do relative to the rest of the mission,” Stich said at the briefing.
NASA closed the helium manifolds in the propulsion system after docking to stop the leaks, although they will have to be opened to use the spacecraft’s thrusters for undocking and deorbit maneuvers. NASA said June 10 that engineers estimate that Starliner has enough helium to support 70 hours of flight…
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