NASA postpones its test flight
The “Starliner” astronauts must leave again
The “Starliner” was supposed to take people into space a long time ago. But the project is very late. Less than two hours before the scheduled start of the first manned test flight of the Boeing spacecraft, the project is postponed again.
The highly anticipated launch of the first manned Boeing “Starliner” rocket into space had to be postponed by at least 24 hours due to technical problems. The flight was aborted less than two hours before the countdown because a problem with a valve in the rocket’s second stage could not be resolved in time, NASA said in its livestream.
The “CST-200 Starliner” was to take off from the Kennedy Space Center of the American space agency NASA in Florida with an Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and bring two astronauts to the International Space Station ( ISS). The two astronauts Barry Wilmore and Suni Williams left the “Starliner” capsule and returned to their crew quarters at the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida, it was reported. It’s unclear how long it will take to resolve the issue. The date of the next start attempt has not yet been set.
Boeing is already facing intense public scrutiny and a major overhaul of its quality control following a series of crises in commercial aviation. The company wanted to give a sign of success with the “Starliner”. To save the program, which is years behind schedule, it has so far exceeded planned costs by more than $1.5 billion.
In May 2022, the “Starliner” made a successful unmanned flight to the ISS for the first time and spent four days there – an important test for the spacecraft. In the future, it will transport astronauts to the ISS as an alternative to SpaceX’s “Crew Dragon” space capsule.
