Boeing Starliner launch delayed

Another setback for the first manned flight of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft. Although its takeoff to the International Space Station was scheduled for Monday night, a technical problem halted it two hours before launch.

An anomaly was discovered on a valve on the Atlas V rocket that will launch the Starliner capsule into orbit, launch vehicle manufacturer United Launch Alliance (ULA) said.

A new takeoff attempt could theoretically take place as early as Tuesday evening. Otherwise, filming is possible on Friday, Saturday or the middle of next week. Most likely it is Saturday, 2:55 am French time. But that date is yet to be announced definitively, according to an analysis by teams at ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

If it turns out the valve needs to be replaced, the operation will take “several days,” ULA chief Tory Bruno said at a news conference, assuring that his teams would work “all night” and that’s how it should be. be able to get tested in the morning.

Initially, preparations went smoothly: the rocket was fueled, the weather was ideal, and American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, two veterans with more than 500 days in space, were settled into place. After this incident they were dropped off.

However, the delay is a new blow for Boeing. Even if developing a spacecraft isn’t easy, this mission should allow a company whose image has been tarnished by problems with these planes to join the very private club of human-carrying spacecraft. The aerospace giant must demonstrate its capsule is safe before it can begin regular flights to the Space Station (ISS).

Reception Mask

Unless Boeing suffers from comparison with its competitor SpaceX, which now regularly launches flights to the ISS or satellites. Moreover, Elon Musk did not hesitate to challenge Boeing a little: “Even though Boeing received $4.2 billion to develop the astronaut capsule, and SpaceX only received $2.6 billion, SpaceX completed the work 4 years early,” he explained on X (formerly Twitter). adding, “There are too many non-technical managers at Boeing.” The SpaceX Dragon capsule joined the roster of manned spacecraft in 2020, replacing the legendary Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle programs.

It’s true that Boeing’s program has suffered many setbacks since NASA’s order about a decade ago.

In 2019, during the first unmanned test, the capsule failed to reach the correct trajectory and returned before reaching the ISS. Then in 2021, while the rocket was on the launch pad to attempt flight again, a problem with blocked valves, this time on the capsule, led to another flight delay. The empty ship finally managed to reach the ISS in May 2022.

Boeing then hoped that it would be able to make its first manned flight that same year. But problems discovered late, especially with the parachutes braking the capsule as it re-entered the atmosphere, again caused delays. “There were a number of surprises that we had to overcome,” Boeing manager Mark Nappi admitted. But “it’s made our teams very strong,” he said, adding: “It’s quite typical that it takes ten years to develop a human spacecraft.”

For NASA, delaying the Starliner launch is also a bad move. The American agency plans to have a second ship in addition to SpaceX to transport American astronauts, which will allow it to better respond to “various emergency scenarios,” for example, if problems arise on one of the Dana ships. emphasized Weigel, head of the ISS program.

In addition, NASA does not want to relive the situation of dependence on Russia, where after the shuttle shutdown in 2011, NASA astronauts had to travel for some time aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

After the ISS decommissions in 2030, the two ships could be used to transport people to future private space stations.