Boeing cancels Starliner crew launch in final minutes of countdown

The CST-200 Starliner’s maiden voyage carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) was much-anticipated and has been delayed as Boeing jostles for a greater share of NASA’s lucrative business, now dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Boeing’s first attempt to send an uncrewed Starliner to the space station in 2019 failed because of software and engineering glitches. A second attempt in 2022 succeeded, paving the way for efforts to land the first crewed test mission.

The countdown was halted two hours before launch time on May 6 because of a malfunction in a pressurization valve in the Atlas upper stage, followed by weeks of delays because of other engineering problems with Starliner that have now been fixed.

The gumdrop-shaped capsule stood ready for launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop an Atlas V rocket provided by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.

The postponement was announced during a live NASA webcast.

The launch forecast on Saturday called for a 90% chance of favorable weather conditions, and ULA said on social media earlier in the day that all systems were ready for an on-time launch.

Boeing, whose commercial aircraft operations are in disarray after a series of crises, desperately needs wins in space for its Starliner venture, a program that is years behind schedule and has seen cost overruns of more than $1.5 billion.

While Boeing has struggled, SpaceX has become a trusted taxi to orbit for NASA, supporting a new generation of privately built spacecraft that can ferry astronauts to the ISS and in the future — under its ambitious Artemis program — to the Moon and eventually Mars.

Starliner will compete directly with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which has been NASA’s sole vehicle to send ISS crew to orbit from US soil since 2020.

This flight will be the first crewed trip to space using an Atlas rocket since the famous family of Atlas launch vehicles first sent astronauts, including John Glenn, on orbital flights for NASA’s Mercury program in the 1960s.

Once launched, the capsule is expected to reach the space station after about 26 hours of flight and link up with the research outpost orbiting about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

As per plan, the two astronauts will stay on the space station for about a week, after which they will return to Earth aboard the Starliner and land in the southwestern desert of the US with the help of parachutes and airbags – which will be a first for NASA’s crewed missions.

The test flight comes at a particularly crucial moment for Boeing. Its aircraft business is dealing with the damage caused when a cabin panel door plug on a nearly new 737 Max 9 burst in mid-air in January, as well as previous fatal crashes of two 737 Max jets.

Getting the Starliner to this point has been an arduous process for Boeing under a $4.2 billion fixed-price contract with NASA that has now grown to about $4.5 billion, according to a Reuters review of changes since the contract was awarded in 2014.

The space agency wants to eliminate the redundancy of two separate U.S. flights to the ISS, which is expected to retire around 2030. NASA is encouraging private development of new space stations that could replace the ISS after its retirement, potentially giving Starliner new destinations.

Depending on the results of the first crewed test flight, Starliner is booked for at least six more crewed missions to the space station for NASA.

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Published: June 01, 2024, 10:37 PM IST