“We'll take this opportunity or the next one that comes along,” said Mark Nappi, a Boeing vice president.
The decision to forgo the launch opportunity on Sunday, NASA's statement said, would “give the team additional time” to assess the problem.
The first manned journey of the CST-200 Starliner to the International Space Station (ISS), with two astronauts on board, remains a key milestone for Boeing as it fights to win a bigger share of the lucrative NASA-dominated business now for Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Another release cancelled
ULA Executive Director Tory Bruno said the main causes would be “a hardware problem or a network communication problem” between three computers that control the automated launch systems.
Boeing's first attempt to send an uncrewed Starliner to the space station in 2019 failed due to software and engineering errors. A second attempt in 2022 was successful, paving the way for efforts to achieve the first manned test mission.
The May 6 countdown was halted just two hours before launch time by a faulty pressure valve in the Atlas V's upper stage, followed by weeks of additional delays caused by other engineering problems , since they were resolved, on the Starliner itself.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore (left) and Suni Williams.Credit: AP
The two-member crew, NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 61, and Sunita “Suni” Williams, 58, had been strapped into their seats aboard the spacecraft for a couple of hours before that launch activities be suspended.
Technicians helped the astronauts out of the capsule and away from the launch tower after the flight was cleared, returning them to their quarantine quarters to await the next flight attempt.
It's not uncommon in the space industry for countdowns to stop at the 11th hour and for launches to be delayed for days or weeks, even when seemingly minor malfunctions or unusual sensor readings are detected, especially on new spacecraft spacecraft carrying humans for the first time. .
Boeing, whose commercial planemaking operations are in disarray after several crises, urgently needs a space success for its Starliner venture, a multi-year, $1.5 billion-plus program behind schedule ($2.25 billion) in cost overruns.
Boeing's Starliner capsule on an Atlas V rocket.Credit: AP
While Boeing has struggled, SpaceX has become a reliable space taxi service for NASA, providing the only means of launching the ISS crew into orbit from American soil.
NASA, backing a new generation of privately built spacecraft, sees Starliner as a second major vehicle capable of ferrying astronauts there from the space station, as well as the moon and eventually Mars under its ambitious program Artemis.
Once launched, the Starliner is expected to arrive at the space station after a flight of about 24 hours and dock with the research outpost in orbit about 400 kilometers above Earth.
Plans call for the two astronauts to remain on the space station for about a week before returning to Earth on the Starliner for a parachute and airbag landing in the desert in the southwestern United States, a first for the missions manned by NASA.
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Getting Starliner to this point has been a tough process for Boeing with a $4.2 billion fixed-price contract with NASA that has since increased to $4.5 billion, according to a review of contract changes since was awarded in 2014. .
Reuters
