Boeing's Starliner, which was canceled yesterday, has now been postponed for a week. Boeing would launch the first astronaut launch, which would take Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) for a week. NASA said the mission's May 17 launch has been postponed after engineers said a faulty rocket valve must be replaced for the high-stakes mission.
The test has been delayed for years and comes at a challenging time for Boeing, as a safety crisis engulfs the century-old aviation titan's commercial aviation arm.
Also read: NASA: Sunita Williams' new space mission suspended; Boeing cancels astronaut launches. Here's why
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were ready for launch Monday evening when the decision was made to abort the launch. Earlier, United Launch Alliance, the joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin responsible for the rocket, announced that the launch would be postponed until at least May 10. However, upon further analysis, it was discovered that a valve had undergone excessive wear and needed to be replaced. As a result, the rocket will be rolled back to its hangar for necessary repairs.
“NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test is scheduled to launch no earlier than Friday, May 17 at 6:16 PM EDT,” the US space agency said in a blog post.
Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams were scheduled to depart aboard Boeing's Starliner crew, where they would remain for about a week. NASA is banking on Starliner's success as it hopes for a second utility vehicle to ferry crews to the orbital outpost. In 2020, Elon Musk's SpaceX achieved this milestone using its Dragon capsule, ending nearly a decade of dependence on Russian rockets after the Space Shuttle program was halted.
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Published: May 8, 2024 09:10 AM IST