Boeing Starliner Capsule Parachute Test Revealed by The Company

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Boeing and SpaceX are the two companies that are competing to create and to have ready a functional commercial crew capsule for the future trips to the International Space Station. In this race, Boeing has begun testing its parachute system for the space vehicles. The purpose is to bring back the commercial capsule safely back to Earth. Boeing has even posted a video with the test in which you can see the CST-100 Starliner capsule doing a parachute test from a high altitude balloon.

The story of the CST-100 Starliner capsule begins after NASA has contracted Boeing and SpaceX to create a system to carry astronauts on trips between Earth and ISS. So both companies have started to work on space capsule for NASA, and in the time that SpaceX is creating and working on Dragon 2 capsule, Boeing has begun to develop Starliner. Boeing has design the capsule to hold up to seven astronauts, to land on land, not on the sea, and to be reused up to ten times.

Boeing Starliner Capsule Parachute Test Revealed by The Company

Also, the first test flight of the Starliner without crew was in March 2019, but because of some scheduling pressures, the trip was postponed. But Boeing is going to make the capsule debut in August from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with the help of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. On the other hand, SpaceX made its test trip without astronauts in March 2019 with the Crew Dragon capsule. That was the first mission of the capsule to the ISS, and it returned safely to Earth a week later.

To sum up, both companies have some issues to resolve on their capsule. SpaceX small victory with the Crew Dragon was shadowed by the problem encountered later on the engine. This engine anomaly destroyed the same Crew Dragon during another test. And this is not the only problem that Crew Dragon has encountered, because after testing the parachutes, three from four hadn’t opened fully. Also, Boeing has admitted that their parachute test had some issues too, and they are working at the parachute design for further improvements.

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