NASA's Boeing Starliner crewed launch try called off for Saturday; possible June 1 target
With more reviews still ahead, teams working to ready Boeing's Starliner for its maiden crewed flight are now aiming toward a June 1 liftoff — almost a month after the initial launch attempt ended in a scrub that uncovered additional issues with the spacecraft.
The Saturday, June 1, launch of the Crew Flight Test would be at 12:25 p.m. ET, but the Boeing statement added that there would be other opportunities on June 2, June 5 and June 6.
"Work continues to assess Starliner performance and redundancy following the discovery of a small helium leak in the spacecraft's service module," the statement said, noting teams were also assessing the propulsion system "to understand potential helium system impacts on some Starliner return scenarios."
Before a launch would get the go ahead, NASA will conduct another Flight Readiness Review to discuss all the work that has been done on both Starliner and the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket since the May 6 scrub. No date for that review has been set yet. NASA astronauts and Navy test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams remain quarantined outside of Florida and practicing on Starliner simulators. They'd return to Kennedy Space Center closer to a new launch date.
"It has been important that we take our time to understand all the complexities of each issue," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. "We will launch Butch and Suni on this test mission after the entire community has reviewed the team's progress and flight rationale."
Tuesday night, NASA waved off the planned Saturday, May 25, launch date.
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Wilmore and Williams had boarded Starliner on May 6 for the capsule's historic first crewed flight when technicians noticed a "buzzing" pressure regulation valve on the liquid oxygen tank of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket's Centaur upper stage about two hours before liftoff.
The mission was scrubbed; crews rolled the Atlas V back into ULA's Vehicle Integration Facility at Launch Complex 41; and the astronauts flew back to Houston under quarantine.
A ULA team replaced the valve on May 11. But now, teams have spent days assessing the Starliner helium leak, which was traced to a flange on a reaction control system thruster. Helium is used in spacecraft thruster systems to allow the thrusters to fire, per a post-scrub update.
Launch target dates of May 21 and 25 were subsequently postponed.
After Starliner finally lifts off the pad, Wilmore and Williams are expected to bolt into low-Earth orbit and spend roughly 10 days aboard the International Space Station.
Meanwhile, SpaceX was targeting back-to-back Falcon 9 rocket launches Wednesday night and Thursday night on Starlink missions from the Cape, a Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory shows. Launch windows:
Wednesday: 10:33 p.m. Wednesday to 3:04 a.m. Thursday.
Thursday: 6:45 p.m. until 11:16 p.m.
FLORIDA TODAY's Space Team will start posting blog updates about 90 minutes before each mission at floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Boeing Starliner launch attempt called off again; teams aiming for June 1
