NASA and Boeing were forced to cancel a planned launch to the International Space Station on Monday due to a last-minute issue with a valve on the spacecraft’s rocket.
Boeing’s Starliner capsule was slated to take off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:34 p.m. ET for its maiden crewed test flight. NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams were aboard the capsule and secured into their seats when the launch attempt was aborted about two hours before the scheduled liftoff.
A new launch date has yet to be announced.
The canceled launch is just another setback for Boeing
After an issue was discovered on the oxygen valve on the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, which the Starliner capsule was supposed to ride into orbit, mission controllers announced a launch “scrub.”
When the crewed Starliner trip takes place, it will be a critical final test before NASA authorizes Boeing to fly routinely to and from the space station.
NASA and Boeing officials have stated that safety is the top priority for the spacecraft’s first trip with humans on board.
The canceled launch is just another setback for Boeing, which has already experienced years of delays and financial overruns with its Starliner program. It has slipped far behind SpaceX, which has been flying crewed missions to and from the space station for NASA since 2020.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program helped build both SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and Boeing’s Starliner vessel. The project began more than a decade ago, following the retirement of the agency’s space shuttles, to assist private companies in developing new space vehicles to transport astronauts to low-Earth orbit.
Starliner’s first uncrewed trip in 2019 was hampered by technical faults, prompting mission controllers to shorten the test before the ship attempted to meet and dock with the ISS. A second attempt was delayed many times due to fuel valve concerns, and it wasn’t until 2022 that Boeing was able to successfully fly uncrewed to and from the space station.