Boeing Starliner in Wrong Orbit Will Land Sunday After Launch Anomaly – Space.com, Space.com

The capsule sets its onboard timer by retrieving data from the Atlas V, Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing’s Space and Launch Division, explained during a news conference today.) “Somehow, we reached in there and grabbed the wrong spot,” Chilton said. The issue likely lies with Starliner’s onboard software and seems to be a simple retrieval error, he added.

“So far, it doesn’t look like a major systemic issue,” Chilton said. But he did stress that this is a preliminary diagnosis, and the Starliner team continues to investigate the issue. The timing problem had major consequences for Starliner and OFT. The capsule thought it was time to start preparing for its big orbit-insertion burn, which would send it on its way toward the ISS, so Starliner began firing its small, reaction-control thrusters to maintain the proper orientation. But it was actually too early in the flight profile to do this, and, by the time the mission team had noticed and fixed the problem, Starliner had burned too much propellant to get to its intended orbit.

Starliner’s handlers had problems sending commands to the spacecraft via NASA’s (************************ Tracking and Data Relay Satellites(TDRS), which explains, at least in part, why those troubleshooting attempts came too late, mission team members have said.

It appears that Starliner happened to be in a position between TDRS craft during those crucial moments, making communication difficult, Chilton said today. But Starliner also apparently was not pointing its antenna toward the relay satellites as expected – another issue that likely traces back to the timing problem.