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Saturday’s launch for the crewed pre-wedding trip on a Boeing Starliner is unexpected – and NASA has announced a new target date.
Starliner’s first astronaut-carrying flight is now expected to end no earlier than June 1 at 12:25 p.m. ET, with several backup opportunities in the following days, according to a statement from NASA late Wednesday.
“Mission managers from NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) continue to evaluate a path forward toward sending the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station,” the space agency said in the statement.
The update comes after several delays earlier this month, and a week after Starliner mission teams reported a small helium leak in the spacecraft’s service module. They traced the leak to a part called a fan on one reaction control system thruster, where helium is used to allow the thrusters to fire.
Just days ago, NASA announced that crews aimed to launch no earlier than May 25, saying that the extra time before launch would give specialists more time to evaluate the issue, although it was found out in tests that the leak is not a threat to the mission. .
“Work continues to assess Starliner’s performance and redundancy following the discovery of a small helium leak in the spacecraft’s service module,” the space agency noted. “As part of this work, and not related to the current leak which is still stable, teams are conducting a follow-up assessment of the propulsion system to understand the impact of the helium system on a number of situations Starliner folded.”
This mission, known as the Crew Flight Test, could be the last major milestone before NASA deems the Boeing spacecraft ready for routine operations as part of the federal agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
The historic crewed flight was about two hours from liftoff on May 6 when it was scrapped due to an issue with the valve on the second stage, or upper part, of the Atlas V rocket that will ride Starliner into space.
The NASA astronauts who were set to crew the mission for a week to stay at the International Space Station, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, returned to Houston on May 10 to spend time with their families, Boeing said last week. They remain in pre-flight quarantine and continue to practice in Starliner simulators, the space agency said.
Boeing’s historic goals
The Crew Flight Test is ten years in the making — the culmination of Boeing’s efforts to develop a spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station under NASA’s commercial program.
The launch would mark only the sixth maiden voyage of a crewed spacecraft in U.S. history, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson noted at a news conference earlier this month.
“It started with Mercury, then Gemini, then Apollo, the space shuttle, then (SpaceX’s) Dragon — and now Starliner,” he said.
On board, Williams will also make history as the first woman to embark on such a mission.
Boeing designed the Starliner to compete with SpaceX’s prolific Crew Dragon capsule and to expand US options for transporting astronauts to the space station.
A rocky start
Development bottlenecks, test flight problems and other costly obstacles have blocked Starliner’s path to the launch pad. Meanwhile, Boeing’s rival under NASA’s commercial crew program – SpaceX – has become the transport provider for the space agency’s astronauts.
Williams and Wilmore were already in their seats aboard the Starliner capsule May 6 when engineers discovered a problem and halted the launch.
The United Launch Alliance team, which builds the Atlas V rocket, identified a pressure control valve on a liquid oxygen tank that needed to be replaced. The valve has since been replaced, but the most recent issue was the helium leak on the Boeing spacecraft that sits atop the rocket. more delay.
“The joint NASA, Boeing, and ULA teams have done an exceptional amount of analysis and testing over the past two weeks to replace the Centaur Self-Control Valve and troubleshoot the Starliner Service Module helium manifold leak,” said Steve Stich, manager. of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, in a Wednesday NASA statement.
“It was important that we take our time to understand the complexities of each issue including the redundant capabilities of the Starliner propulsion system and any implications for our Interim Human Rating Certificate,” he said. “We will send Butch and Suni on this test mission after the entire community has reviewed the team’s progress and flight rationale at the upcoming Delta Agency Flight Test Readiness Review.”
If the spacecraft launches next week as planned, it and the astronauts will break away from the Atlas V rocket after reaching orbit, as Starliner begins firing its own engines. The vehicle is likely to spend more than 24 hours gradually making its way to the space station.
Williams and Wilmore are to spend about a week at the orbiting laboratory, joining the seven astronauts and cosmonauts already on board, with the Starliner still closed outside.
The history team will then return home aboard the same Starliner capsule, which is expected to parachute to a landing at one of several designated sites throughout the southwestern United States.
CNN’s Jackie Wattles and Ashley Strickland contributed to this story.
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