CST-100

[triage]

Salo пишет:
Eric Berger Подлинная учетная запись ‏@ SciGuySpace

Ну зачем эту каку сюда тащить. У спайсов другой пульт и уже давно.

[Валерий Жилинский]

Воинг открыл свой центр подготовки астронавтов для полётов на Старлайнере.

Boeing Opens Starliner Training Center
   
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2016/06/30/boeing-opens-starliner-training-center/

[Salo]

Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  
Updated timeline of major commercial crew milestones. SpaceX certification review Oct 2017; Boeing in May 2018.
 
  7:10 - 25 июл. 2016 г.

[Salo]

James Dean ‏@flatoday_jdean  1 ч.1 час назад  
Inside former OPF-3 at KSC, now Boeing's "C3PF" for CST-100 Starliner commercial crew capsule assembly.
   
 

[triage]

Boeing Debuts Modernized High Bay at Kennedy
Posted on [url=https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2016/07/26/boeing-debuts-modernized-high-bay-at-kennedy/]July 26, 2016 at 12:06 pm by Anna Heiney.
Boeing on Tuesday unveiled its clean-floor facility that serves as the hub for its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft as they are manufactured and prepared for flight to and fr om the International Space Station, and wh ere they'll refurbished between missions. The high bay in the company's Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility, formerly known as Orbiter Processing Facility 3, is now modernized and ready to support the Starliner program.

It was once filled with about 1,000 tons of steel work platforms that enshrouded the space shuttle orbiters as they were refurbished and prepared for flight. Today, the facility contains several pieces of hardware and a mock-up that are key to Boeing's and NASA's efforts to launch astronauts from Florida's Space Coast through the Commercial Crew Program.

(Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)

[Salo]

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/aerojet-rocketdyne/starliner-spacecraft-engines-successfully-hot-fire-tested/

Starliner spacecraft engines successfully hot-fire tested
Tomasz Nowakowski
July 27th, 2016

One of three Reaction Control System engines for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner recently completed hot-fire testing at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. Photo Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne
 
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is one step closer to carrying astronauts to space from American soil as its engines have recently undergone a series of hot-fire development tests. The tests were carried out by Aerojet Rocketdyne at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico.
The three Reaction Control System (RCS) engines successfully hot-fired are part of the spacecraft's service module propulsion system, being currently developed by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The Sacramento, California-based rocket propulsion manufacturer announced on Monday, July 25, each RCS engine was tested up to 4,000 pulses and 1,600 seconds. According to the company, it was the longest accumulated time ever conducted on a lightweight thruster with a composite chamber.

Artist depiction of CST-100 Starliner in orbit above Earth. Image Credit: Boeing
 
"The successful RCS engine tests demonstrated durability and long operational life capabilities meeting the Starliner requirements for composite thrust chambers, which are crucial to mission success and astronaut safety," Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake said in a press release. "We look forward to qualifying the engines and continuing our nation's legacy of delivering humans into space."
The RCS engines are designed to provide on-orbit maneuvering functions, as well as re-boost capabilities for the space station. Under its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) subcontract to Boeing, Aerojet Rocketdyne is responsible for the design, development, qualification, certification and initial production of the Starliner's service module propulsion system, including the development and testing of 28 100-pound thrust class RCS engines.
The spacecraft's service module propulsion system will be necessary for Starliner's activities during a nominal flight to the International Space Station (ISS). It will provide all propulsion needs required for launch vehicle separation, docking and undocking from the ISS, as well as separation of the crew and service modules during the re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. The system will also provide integrated launch abort capability on the pad and during ascent.
"Aerojet Rocketdyne is leveraging adaptations of proven hardware and technologies to deliver an affordable reliable propulsion system that can be counted on to perform throughout the spacecraft's mission and ensure the safety of the astronauts and success of the mission," Terry Lorier, Aerojet Rocketdyne's CST-100 service module propulsion system program manager, said in November 2015.
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner is 16.5 feet (5.03 meters) long and 15 feet (4.56 meters) in diameter. It can carry up to seven passengers, or a mix of crew and cargo to ISS. The spacecraft is designed to remain on-orbit for up to seven months with reusability of up to ten missions.
First uncrewed orbital test flight of the Starliner spacecraft is currently scheduled for December 2017. The capsule will carry its first two astronauts to ISS in February 2018.

[Salo]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/08/02/boeing-nears-fix-for-cst-100-starliner-design-hitch/

Boeing nears fix for CST-100 Starliner design hitch             
 August 2, 2016 Stephen Clark
 
The pressure hull for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner structural test article sits inside a repurposed space shuttle hangar at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in this July 25 photo. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Boeing says engineers are resolving concerns with the mass and aerodynamic shape of the company's CST-100 Starliner commercial crew carrier, and officials are optimistic the spaceship will be ready to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station in early 2018.
"If everything goes well, we'll meet schedule," said Chris Ferguson, a former space shuttle astronaut and deputy program manager for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, in a recent interview with Spaceflight Now. "It's the unknown unknowns (we're concerned about), but we're optimistic."
According to Ferguson, Boeing engineers are wrapping up analyses of two design concerns that combined to trigger a delay in the first CST-100 crewed test flight fr om late 2017 until February 2018.
One issue involved the mass of the crew capsule, which outgrew the lift capability of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket sel ected to put it into orbit.
The CST-100 Starliner will ride an Atlas 5 rocket with two solid rocket boosters and a dual-engine Centaur upper stage, and although Boeing and ULA engineers considered adding a third strap-on motor to compensate for the capsule's extra weight, managers now have the spacecraft back under its mass allowance, Ferguson said.
"There's a certain percentage below the lift capability of the Atlas 5 we were aiming for, and then there are natural margins with mass growth allowances that you always put in, just in case you get some surprises at the last minute," Ferguson said.
"We've identified all the necessary items that will get us back below the line for mass," Ferguson said. "Of course, when you go do that kind of work you have to go back and revisit some of the drawings and some of the designs. I'd say about half of it came pretty easy. The other half was a challenge. but we've got an engineering solution for all the fixes needed to get us back underneath the line."
Ferguson said Boeing has a model of the Atlas 5 rocket and CST-100 Starliner in a wind tunnel to verify a change to capsule's outer shape devised to overcome higher-than-expected aerodynamic launch loads discovered in testing.
"They had one issue, a non-linear aerodynamic loads issue, where they were getting some high acoustic loads right behind the spacecraft," said Phil McAlister, head of NASA's commercial spaceflight development office in Washington.
Atlas 5 rockets carrying the Boeing crew ship will encounter different aerodynamic and acoustic environments than on normal satellite launches. The CST-100 Starliner will not fly inside a nose shroud on top of the Atlas 5, as other payloads do.
 
Artist's concept of a CST-100 Starliner capsule on top of an Atlas 5 rocket. Credit: Boeing

"They're in the final phase of some wind tunnel testing," McAlister told members of the NASA Advisory Council's human spaceflight subcommittee last week. "They think they've got a good solution by putting on an extended skirt behind the capsule. We think that's a pretty good solution, too, but we really want to see some of that final wind tunnel test data come through."
Nevertheless, Ferguson said he was happy to have a solution for the mass and aerodynamic issues.
"I think we've got them under control," Ferguson told Spaceflight Now. "The good news is there are no additional large problems that have arisen in the last six months, so maybe we're at the point wh ere we've investigated everything, and we finally have a design we're confident in."
Inside the CST-100 assembly facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, technicians are finishing work on a structural test article of the craft's weld-less crew module and readying it for shipment across the country to a Boeing site in Huntington Beach, California.
Engineers there will add the spacecraft's outer skin and heat shield.
"It's really going to start looking like a spaceship when it gets out there," Ferguson said. "It will be out there until late this year going through a series of shock and vibration (tests)."
Meanwhile, components of the first flight-worthy CST-100 spaceship are arriving at KSC for assembly of a capsule destined to fly on a pad abort test next year. That capsule is dubbed the qualification test vehicle, and it will be the first Starliner unit to include the avionics, computers and many of the other systems needed for flight.
The qualification capsule will not have the environmental control and life support systems required to support human passengers, Ferguson said.
"The avionics, the items that have to go through qualification, the pumps and fans, they start showing up here in late summer, and then we'll integrate them into the first spacecraft that we fire up and see how it performs as an integrated system," Ferguson said.
The first power-up of a CST-100 spaceship on the ground is expected late this year, with tests continuing into 2017.
 
Chris Ferguson, director of CST-100 crew and mission operations, talks with NASA sstronaut Megan McArthur during a visit to Advanced Scientific Concepts in Santa Barbara, California, which is building 3D Flash Light Detection and Ranging sensors for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Credit: Boeing

"Hopefully, if everything goes well, it's just a matter of following the instructions that we set forth to assemble the remaining two which will become the Orbital Flight Test and Crewed Flight Test vehicles," Ferguson said, referring to the spaceships that will launch on Boeing's unpiloted and piloted demo flights.
The CST-100 qualification unit is not expected to fly into space, but Ferguson said Boeing has the ability to upgrade it for orbital missions if required.
Qualifying each CST-100 component, both individually and at the full spacecraft level, is one of the big jobs on the Boeing team's docket, and that work does not get the attention of a flight test.
"We've got about 200 avionics boxes that need to go through their own level of qualification," Ferguson said. "That qualification is done at the vendor. What we do is we being all the systems together, so they all sing, and then we say, 'Hey, I'm happy with the way this subsystem works — the electrical system or the environment system.'"
Officials from SpaceX, NASA's other commercial crew transportation provider, have been less public about the problems, if any, it has encountered in the Crew Dragon program, but NASA officials said they are happy with both contractors.
A Crew Dragon test article has been subjected to structural loads tests this summer to ensure it can withstand the stresses of spaceflight.
The Crew Dragon's second "delta critical design review," a major milestone to clean up lingering design issues, is due to wrap up in late August or early September, McAlister said.
Other major SpaceX milestones coming soon include a full-up test of the Crew Dragon's life support system, activation of KSC's launch pad 39A for Falcon rocket flights, and qualification of the capsule's unique four-parachute landing system.
McAlister said schedules proposed by Boeing and SpaceX, the two companies tapped by the agency end U.S. reliance on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft, are "optimistic but achievable."
SpaceX currently targets August 2017 for the first piloted test flight of its Crew Dragon capsule, according to internal NASA schedule documents, while Boeing's similar demo mission with two astronauts is set for February 2018.
NASA plans to conduct a major review of the test flights a few months after each mission — in October 2017 for SpaceX and May 2018 for Boeing — before formally certifying the spacecraft for regular crew rotation sorties to the International Space Station.
One of NASA's concerns with SpaceX's crew program has been the introduction of an upgraded, higher-thrust version of the Falcon 9 rocket. The new configuration burns a super-chilled mixture of rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen.
Stored at colder temperatures than normal, the modified propellant mix allows more fuel and oxidizer to fit into the Falcon 9 and gives its Merlin engines more thrust, boosting the rocket's lift capacity.
But the cryogenic propellant must be loaded aboard the rocket in the final half-hour of the countdown to keep it from heating up in the warm ambient temperatures of Central Florida. Rockets are normally fueled several hours before launch.
 
In this June photo, the first test article of a SpaceX Crew Dragon undergoes structural load testing to demonstrate the spacecraft's ability to withstand the tremendous forces it's exposed to during spaceflight. The backbone of Crew Dragon is a metallic welded pressure vessel. SpaceX has completed manufacturing of the first two pressure vessels to be used for ground testing, and is currently manufacturing two Crew Dragon flight articles. Credit: SpaceX

The change means astronauts will board the Crew Dragon capsule on top of the Falcon 9 rocket before fueling, and the SpaceX launch team will pump propellants into the two-stage launcher once the crew members are strapped in their seats.
NASA officials were at first uncomfortable with SpaceX's proposal to load fuel with the astronauts on-board — Soyuz and shuttle crews strapped in once the rockets were already fueled — but McAlister said managers are getting accustomed to the plan.
SpaceX had trouble with handling the super-chilled propellants on the first couple of flights of the upgraded Falcon 9, prompting a series of aborts and scrubs during attempts to launch a commercial SES television broadcasting satellite in February.
"We're getting better data about that, and quite frankly SpaceX is getting better about how to handle that," McAlister said. "I think we are getting more comfortable with it, but we're not ready to say we're good. We're still working through that."
McAlister said Boeing and SpaceX, which signed crew transportation contracts with NASA in 2014 worth $4.2 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively, are "grinding" through their development steps.
"This is the real tough work," McAlister said. "I think, with commercial crew in the early years, most of the focus was on the policy. I believe most of those discussions have been concluded, and now we're in the blocking and tackling phase of the program."
Interactions between NASA and contractor teams have been fruitful, said Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human exploration and operations mission directorate.
"There's good push and pull both ways," Gerstenmaier said, as NASA, Boeing and SpaceX sift through paperwork to ensure both capsules conform with the space agency's stringent human-rating standards.
Despite SpaceX's schedule, which could allow for operational crew flights by the end of 2017 if achieved, NASA says it will not count on the new commercial spacecraft being ready to send up residents to the space station until some time in 2018.
"We're probably about halfway through, maybe a little bit more than halfway through, the development and hope to be completing both partners in the early part of '18," McAlister said.
NASA has purchased seats for U.S., European, Japanese and Canadian astronauts to launch on Russian Soyuz capsules through 2018, with return trips continuing into mid-2019.
McAlister said that the agency is cognizant of the uncertainty in the commercial crew schedule, and when NASA needs to sign an agreement to purchase more Soyuz seats if required.
Members of the committee raised concerns about the urgency of a decision by NASA to buy more Soyuz seats. Wayne Hale, interim chairman of the advisory council's human exploration and operations subcommittee, suggested NASA had to decide by the end of the year whether to procure Soyuz rides for its astronauts in 2019.
McAlister said he is aware of the dilemma.
NASA has ordered four full-up crew rotation flights — two each fr om Boeing and SpaceX — but has not set target launch dates or determined which company will fly station crews first. Each mission is baselined to fly with four passengers, ferrying them to the space station and then returning them to Earth about a half-year later.
"The future availability of Soyuz is not certain, so we're going to continue to monitor that," McAlister told the subcommittee July 26. "I think we've got some (schedule) margin today, so our partners are not feeling a lot of schedule pressure, (but) we want to make them schedule-aware.
"We like having that Soyuz backup, but how we introduce the Soyuz vehicle into that flow is something we're going to have to be very careful about," McAlister said.

[Salo]

http://ria.ru/science/20160808/1473823247.html

В США начали сборку частного пилотируемого космического корабля Starliner

13:03 08.08.2016

© Flickr/ NASA HQ PHOTO
 
МОСКВА, 8 авг — РИА Новости. Американское космическое агентство НАСА и авиаконцерн Boeing начали сборку первого пилотируемого космического корабля Starliner в космическом центре имени Кеннеди в США, сообщает специализированное издание Universe Today.
"Вы можете видеть начало сборки первого космического аппарата. Все необходимые для постройки элементы конструкции уже здесь", — приводятся в сообщении слова вице-президента и руководителя программы Boeing Commercial Джона Малхолланда.
Он отметил, что начало строительства второго корабля серии намечено на осень. Приступить к сборке третьего корабля специалисты Boeing должны в начале 2017 года.
 Испытания системы аварийного прекращения предстартовых операций космического корабля намечены на октябрь. Первый непилотируемый испытательный орбитальный полет Starliner должен состояться в декабре 2017 года, пилотируемый орбитальный полет – в феврале 2018 года.
Boeing CST 100 Starliner вместе с космическим аппаратом Dragon компании SpaceX является одним из двух частных пилотируемых космических кораблей, которые разрабатываются в рамках договора коммерческого партнерства с НАСА.
После завершения программы космических челноков НАСА в 2011 году США используют российские "Союзы" для доставки астронавтов на МКС. Контракт на разработку нового пилотируемого космического корабля на сумму в 4,2 миллиарда долларов Boeing получил в 2014 году.

[che wi]

A heavy-lift transport truck, carrying the Crew Access Arm for Space Launch Complex 41, travels along the road toward Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The arm will be installed on the Complex 41 Crew Access Tower. It will be used as a bridge by astronauts to board Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft as it stands on the launch pad atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasakennedy/28816193282/

[Salo]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/08/13/video-gantry-swing-arm-arrives-at-atlas-5-pad-for-astronauts-to-board-starliners/                 

Video: Gantry swing arm arrives at Atlas 5 pad for astronauts to board Starliners             
 August 13, 2016 Justin Ray
 
Constructing the launch pad infrastructure for astronauts to board Boeing's Starliner crew capsules atop United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets, workers delivered the Crew Access Arm with its White Room to Cape Canaveral's Complex 41 on Thursday, Aug. 11.
It was built in Oak Hill, just north of the Kennedy Space Center.
The 42-foot-long swing arm will be hoisted onto the new 200-foot-tall crew tower and attached next week. Work to build the crew accommodations have been underway for just over a year, occurring around the busy Atlas 5 launch schedule.
Starliner is scheduled to make its first crewed test flight to the International Space Station in early 2018.
Video courtesy of NASA-KSC

[che wi]

[Salo]

Howard Biegler ‏@Howard_Biegler
Today marks a major milestone for the Commercial Crew Program. The Crew Access Arm is fully mated to the CAT.
 
  11:54 - 15 авг. 2016 г.  

[Старый]

Быстро строят. Только что везли и уже установлена.

[Leonar]

Старый пишет:
Быстро строят. Только что везли и уже установлена.

Это павильон для обеспечения пилотируемых миссий?
 а нашим нужно целую отдельную передвижную башню...с двумя уровнями :cry:

[Старый]

Leonar пишет: 
 а нашим нужно целую отдельную передвижную башню...с двумя уровнями  :cry:

У этих тоже башня есть, только стационарная. А передвижной - стартовый стол с ракетой.

[Salo]

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2016/08/24/starliner-tested-for-ground-landing-conditions/

Starliner Tested for Ground-Landing Conditions
Posted on August 24, 2016 at 3:35 pm by Steven Siceloff.


Boeing engineers recently evaluated the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft's ability to withstand the shocks and other challenges of landing on the ground with a series of drop tests at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. Hoisted using a gantry at Langley that's tested everything fr om private planes to the lunar lander of Apollo, a Starliner mockup with a full-size airbag system in place was released from about 30 feet to see how it behaved when contacting the Earth. The airbags have been designed to absorb much of the impact. A nominal Starliner mission, such as those planned to take NASA astronauts to the International Space Station during Commercial Crew Program flights, is to end with the spacecraft touching down on land in the American southwest wh ere ground support teams can more easily reach the spacecraft and crew than if they splashed down in water.
The Starliner was already tested in water-landing scenarios in the same gantry. All the results will be used by Boeing to confirm the designs of the landing systems and by NASA to certify the systems for use during upcoming flight tests without and then with a crew aboard. Rad many more details about the Starliner testing at http://go.nasa.gov/2bFMZZk

[Apollo13]

NASA'S COMMERCIAL CREW PROGRAM: UPDATE ON DEVELOPMENT AND CERTIFICATION EFFORTS 

[Salo]

Boeing Commercial Crew Milestone Status

[Salo]

Boeing's Starliner Challenges: Weight, Vibrations, Software & Landings
Posted by Doug Messier on September 4, 2016, at 8:30 am

Boeing CST-100 Starliner high bay (Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)
 
Excerpted from, "NASA's Commercial Crew Program: Update on Development and Certification Efforts," NASA Office of Inspector General, Report No. IG-16-028, September 1, 2016
Boeing's CCtCap contract initially included 23 milestones ranging from the establishment of an original requirements baseline to the final vehicle certification. Within the first 2 years of the contract, Boeing and NASA modified the contract to separate three of the milestones into multiple segments, replace one milestone, and add seven milestones related to NASA-imposed software upgrades, landing qualification tests, and hardware modifications.18 These modifications increased the number of milestones to 34 and the total contract value by approximately $46 million.
As of June 2016, Boeing had completed 15 of the 34 milestones (44 percent) necessary to achieve certification and was scheduled to receive up to $1.067 billion (25 percent) of the total contract value in payment.
Of the 23 Boeing milestones, seven related to specific NASA program requirements:
 

• Certification Baseline Review,
• ISS Design Certification Review,
• Orbital Flight Test Readiness Review,
• Crewed Flight Test Design Review,
• Crewed Flight Test Readiness Review,
• Operations Readiness Review, and
• Certification Review.19
  

These milestones address development of the transportation system design, definition of the plan and schedule to obtain certification, and demonstration that the system meets all NASA requirements for uncrewed and first crewed flight tests leading up to final certification for operational flights to the ISS (for more information about these reviews, click here). The dates for NASA required milestones, as well as the Critical Design Review, were extended, which in turn pushed out the dates for Boeing's test flights and the first certified crewed flight.
As of July 2016, Boeing has completed four significant milestones:
 

[/li]
• Certification Baseline Review. For this review, baseline requirements were confirmed to be inline with NASA guidance; the plan and schedule for completing design, development, test, and evaluation and certification for the system was defined; and top safety, technical, cost, and schedule risks were defined. Boeing completed this milestone in November 2014 after a1-month delay.
• Ground Segment Critical Design Review. For this review, the ground segment design was determined sufficiently mature to support proceeding to full-scale fabrication, assembly,integration, and testing. Boeing completed this milestone in December 2014 after a 2-month delay.
• Delta Integrated Critical Design Review and Launch Segment Critical Design Review. For this review, the maturity of the design across the launch segment, spacecraft segment, and ground segment was determined appropriate to proceed to assembly, integration, and test activities.Boeing separated the review into two parts, with the Delta Integrated Critical Design Review completed in May 2015 after a 4-month delay and the Launch Segment Critical Design Review completed in July 2015 after a 2-month delay.  Despite receiving formal approval to proceed from NASA, Boeing had numerous follow-up items to complete after these reviews, including increasing the level of technical expertise at reviews to maintain healthy checks and balances; assessing final launch parameters, including loads and temperatures; and determining the likelihood that Russian rocket engines may be unavailable and identifying other rocket engine options.
• Structural Test Article Test Readiness Review Part 1. This review was designed to ensure development of the primary structure of the capsule and launch vehicle adapter was progressing adequately. Boeing completed this milestone in December 2015 after an 8-month delay.
  

Boeing officials attributed the delays in achieving these milestones to
 

• a 2-month delay (July 2014 to September 2014) in NASA awarding the contract;
• the need to rearrange the order of some tasks to improve the efficiency of work flow; and
• various technical challenges that arose after the contract was awarded.
  

For example, Boeing has had to resolve issues relating to the effects of vibrations generated during launch, which can vary in a manner difficult to predict and can be strong enough to damage the vehicle and impact crew safety. These issues delayed the start of the Structural Test Article Test Readiness Review and Qualification Test Vehicle testing. In addition, Boeing experienced challenges with vehicle mass that affected its spacecraft design.
Boeing officials told us that in retrospect its original schedule may have been too ambitious for some milestones. Given the technical challenges and contract modifications, Boeing has postponed a number of milestones planned for 2016 until 2017, including a pad abort test.
Looking forward, Boeing is scheduled to complete the final segment of Critical Design Review in November 2016. Following the Launch Segment Critical Design Review, in July 2015, NASA had provided Boeing with the approval to generally proceed with its design. However, in April 2016, one final milestone to the Critical Design Review Process was added as a result of new, NASA-imposed requirements related to hardware and software modifications.
Boeing has also scheduled additional testing and certification milestones for the ISS Design Certification Review planned for February 2017 (originally scheduled for November 2016), during which the contractor will verify its capsule is capable of safely approaching, docking, mating, and departing from the Station.
Thereafter, Boeing is scheduled to conduct the Orbital Flight Test Readiness Review in August 2017 (originally scheduled for January 2017); the Crewed Flight Test Design Certification Review in November 2017 (originally scheduled for March 2017); and the Operational Readiness Review in January 2018 (originally scheduled for July 2017).
Boeing's final crew transportation vehicle certification review is scheduled for January 2018, 5 months later than originally planned. However, that date is in doubt given that Boeing's crewed test flight is not projected to occur until the end of 2017. The contractor must complete the test flight and NASA must review the results of that flight before it grants certification.
Commercial Crew Program officials told us they agreed that Boeing's original schedule was aggressive as well as with the reasons it offered for the delays. In addition, they said that the qualification testing in late August 2016 may identify hardware concerns that will require redesign and therefore could lead to additional schedule delays.
In particular, NASA is developing hardware that will enable the Boeing spacecraft to dock with the Station. But because of a tight testing and production schedule, NASA will have started producing this hardware prior to the qualification testing. As a result, any problems that come to light during the testing may require adjustments to hardware that is already in production. As such, further schedule slippages are anticipated, likely pushing the first certified crewed flight until late 2018.
18 Because the contractor receives payment only when it completes a milestone, dividing milestones into subcomponents enables the contractor to receive partial payments while development is ongoing.
19 The number of milestones based on NASA requirements for Boeing differs from SpaceX because Boeing has two separate Design Certification Reviews and two Flight Test Readiness Reviews.

[us2-star]

Если я правильно понял суть:
1) По состоянию на июнь 2016 года, "Боинг" завершил 15 из 34 этапов (44 процента), необходимых для достижения сертификации и планируется получать до 1.067 млрд. долларов США (25 процентов) от общей стоимости контракта в счет оплаты.
2) "Боинг" планирует провести орбитальный испытательный полет в августе 2017 года (первоначально было запланировано на январь 2017 года); с экипажем ноябре 2017 года (первоначально был намечен на март 2017 года); и окончательная готовность (к использованию?) в январе 2018 года (первоначально было запланировано на июль 2017 года).
3) реально ожидают первый эксплуатационный полёт до конца 2018.