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Boeing's astronaut capsule flies off course, fate uncertain after launch debut

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft lifts off atop ULA's Atlas V rocket on its orbital launch debut. (Richard Angle)

Published

6 years ago

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Roughly 30 minutes after lifting off for the first time on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule suffered a major failure when it attempted to raise its orbit with onboard engines.

A few hours after the failure came to light, NASA and Boeing held a press conference to update members of the media on the situation, with the space agency offering some candid – if a bit odd – insight into Starliner’s anomalous launch debut. Before the spacecraft’s software threw a wrench into the gears, the plan was for Starliner to separate from ULA’s Atlas V Centaur upper stage and use its own thrusters to reach orbit and begin the trek up Earth’s gravity well to the International Space Station (ISS).

While it will likely take weeks or even months for Boeing and NASA to determine exactly what went wrong during the mission, preliminary information has already begun to paint a fairly detailed picture.

Around 15 minutes after liftoff, Starliner separated from the rocket as intended but it appears that things began to go awry almost immediately afterward. Most notably, according to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine’s tweets and later comments, a very early look at the telemetry suggests that Starliner’s internal clock was somehow tricked into believing that the time was either earlier or later than it actually was.

Thinking that it was in the midst of a lengthy thruster firing meant to raise its orbit and send the spacecraft on its way to the space station, Starliner was thus focused on ensuring that it was pointed as accurately as possible. Although the space station is the size of a football field, in the vastness of space, rendezvousing with it is a bit like threading a needle. While firing thrusters to do so, spacecraft thus need to point themselves as accurately as possible.

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While coasting before or after one of those orbit-boosting thruster firings, Starliner thought it was actually burning towards the space station and was thus very carefully controlling its orientation with a dozen or so smaller thrusters. In short, those unintentional thruster firings burned through a ton of Starliner’s limited propellant supply – enough to make it impossible (or nearly so) for the spacecraft to rendezvous and dock the ISS, a central purpose of this particular launch.

A long-exposure of Starliner’s Atlas V launch debut. (Richard Angle)

This ultimately means that Starliner is leaning heavily on the “test” aspect of this Orbital Flight Test (OFT), uncovering failure modes and bugs that Boeing was clearly unable to tease out with ground testing and simulation. While in a totally different ballpark, SpaceX similar Crew Dragon spacecraft suffered its own major failure earlier this year, although that capsule explosion occurred during intentional ground testing, whereas Starliner’s software failed during its high-profile launch debut and has severely curtailed the scope of the spacecraft’s first orbital flight test.

In fact, Bridenstine was unable to rule out the possibility that Boeing will have to attempt a second uncrewed orbital flight test (OFT) before Starliner will be qualified to launch the space agency’s astronauts. Although early signs suggest that Boeing will still be able to attempt to deorbit and recover the spacecraft a day or two from now, the fact that Starliner will not be able to perform critical demonstrations of its ISS rendezvous and docking capabilities will make it far harder for NASA to rationally certify the spacecraft for astronaut launches.

Crew Dragon approaches the ISS during its March 2019 Demo-1 launch debut. (NASA)

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, for reference, completed a more or less flawless launch, orbit raise, and rendezvous before docking with the ISS. It’s almost impossible to imagine NASA giving SpaceX permission to proceed immediately into its first astronaut launch if Crew Dragon had failed to reach the proper orbit or dock with the space station.

Regardless, it’s far too early to tell whether Boeing will have to repeat Starliner’s OFT. If Starliner performs absolutely perfectly between now and its planned soft-landing in New Mexico, there might be a chance that NASA will still allow Boeing to effectively cut corners to its astronaut launch debut, but only time will tell.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla tailwinds could drive momentum-filled finish to 2025: analyst

Tesla is heading toward some momentum to finish out the year, one Wall Street firm believes.

Published

47 minutes ago

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July 31, 2025

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Credit: @heydave7/X

Tesla has some tailwinds that could drive it toward a momentum-filled finish to the year, one Wall Street analyst is predicting.

The tailwinds are joined by some minor risks that have impacted the broader electric vehicle market, but overall, this firm believes Tesla has many catalysts moving forward.

Emmanuel Rosner of Wolfe Research believes that Tesla has plenty of things that could drive the stock upward as we approach the end of the year. With Q3 well underway, Tesla has about five months of catalysts to rely on to erase the roughly 18 percent drop in stock price it has so far this year.

At first glance, it is easy to see the things that would have investors bullish on Tesla for the rest of 2025 and even beyond. Initially, the Robotaxi launch and expansion, which spread to Northern California last night, provide potentially huge tailwinds for the company moving forward.

Tesla expands Robotaxi operation to California’s Bay Area

Along with that, and slightly related, are the advancements in Full Self-Driving that the company has made over the past few months.

This includes the potential launch of the FSD suite in regions like Europe and Australia, where the company believes it will make some progress on regulatory approval in the coming months.

Finally, Wolfe says the company’s Optimus project, which is expected to enter scale production sometime next year, is the third catalyst for Tesla moving forward.

With these three projects in motion, Tesla truly can begin to work on rebounding from a rough 2025 on the market.

Rosner writes:

“This name trades more around the narrative than the numbers. And net-net, we tactically see an improving narrative from here. Tesla has several catalysts coming up w/r/t FSD and Robotaxi, including an expansion of their AV service into several new U.S. markets (San Francisco, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, etc.). The company plans to unlock hands-free/eyes-off autonomy for FSD owners in select U.S. locations by YE25. Supervised FSD in China and Europe is expected to launch over the next ~12 months. And, Optimus is expected to enter scale production in 2026.”

Tesla is currently trading around $310 at around 3:20 p.m. on the East Coast.

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Two driverless Waymo cars collide at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport

Two Waymo vehicles collided at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Arizona

Published

3 hours ago

on

July 31, 2025

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waymo self-driving crash in phoenix
Credit: Reddit | u/HIGH_PRESSURE_TOILET

Two driverless Waymo cars collided at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport on Wednesday, but details are incredibly slim as the accident has barely been mentioned on many social media platforms.

The video of the two Waymo vehicles was shared on Reddit’s r/SelfDrivingCars subreddit by u/HIGH_PRESSURE_TOILET (an interesting username), showing the two Jaguar I-PACE EVs at a standstill.

They were still making contact in the video, with one front driver-side quarter panel still in contact with the other’s front passenger door:

There are relatively no details on the matter, but we reached out to Waymo earlier today, and an employee was able to share the following information.

Waymo told Teslarati that the accident occurred at a low speed, which is evident based on the lack of major damage done to either vehicle. Waymo did not reveal a specific speed at which the accident occurred, but they did mention it was a low speed.

The message Waymo’s vehicles showed after the accident in Phoenix. (Credit: Reddit | u/HIGH_PRESSURE_TOILET)

Additionally, there were no passengers inside either vehicle at the time of the crash. The cause of the accident is still unknown, but the company is currently investigating any potential causes and aims to have more answers in the coming days.

This is an expected growing pain of driverless vehicles, as autonomous rides are still in their very early phases. We have seen Waymo vehicles encounter a variety of challenges over the past several years, including getting stuck at construction zones in other cities.

Here’s one example of one nearly driving into a trench:

Waymo self driving car almost drives into a trench at construction site

Waymo is in direct competition with Tesla Robotaxi, which is operating in both Austin, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Waymo operates in both of these areas.

As Waymo updates us with more details, we will share them here and update the article.

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Tesla tips off where it wants to expand Robotaxi next

Tesla looks to have its sights on several major cities in the United States to expand Robotaxi operation.

Published

5 hours ago

on

July 31, 2025

By

Credit: @AdanGuajardo/X

Tesla has tipped off where it wants to expand its Robotaxi ride-hailing platform next, as it has launched rides in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday.

Austin, Texas, and the Bay Area of California are the two areas where Tesla is currently operating its ride-hailing service. In Austin, there is nobody in the driver’s seat, whereas in California, the rides will operate with someone in the driver’s seat.

This is a regulatory difference, but it is not all bad. California’s geofence for the ride-hailing service is nearly 70 miles long and spans from above San Francisco to the south, all the way down to San Jose.

However, this is not where Tesla is stopping. Expansion is going to occur when Tesla is ready to do so, but it is not being conservative with its expectations.

During last week’s Q2 2025 Earnings Call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he expects half of the U.S. population to have access to Robotaxi by the end of the year:

“As we get the approvals and prove out safety, we will be launching the autonomous ride-hailing across most of the country. I think we will probably have autonomous ride-hailing in probably half the population of the US by the end of the year. That’s at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals. I think we will technically be able to do it. Assuming we have regulatory approvals, it’s probably addressing half the population of the US by the end of the year. We are being very cautious. We do not want to take any chances, so we are going to go cautiously. But the service areas and the number of vehicles in operation will increase at a hyper-exponential rate.”

In order to do this, Tesla will need to expand to additional cities. A recent list of job postings captured by Tesla Yoda on X showed that the automaker is hiring in major metropolitan areas of the U.S. to reach more people.

The cities listed in the job postings are:

  • Palo Alto, California
  • Brooklyn, New York
  • Houston, Texas
  • Dallas, Texas
  • Tempe, Arizona
  • Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Tampa, Florida
  • Orlando, Florida
  • Miami, Florida

Accessing markets like New York City, Dallas, Las Vegas, Miami, Tampa, and Orlando will enable Tesla to gain access to more customers. These are also major hotspots for tourism in the United States, where people might be able to get Tesla Robotaxi rides during trips or vacations.

These cities are unconfirmed to be in Tesla’s sites as it has not made any official statements about where it will expand in the future. However, these job postings are a good indication of where it could be looking in order to expand.

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