The launch of the Boeing Starliner, which was set to take astronaut Sunita Williams to space for a third time, has been postponed due to a technical glitch. No new date has been officially announced for the launch.
The long-awaited first crewed test flight of Boeing’s new Starliner space capsule was called off on Tuesday over a technical issue. The postponement, attributed to an issue with a valve in the rocket’s second stage, was announced during a live NASA webcast.
The Boeing Starliner was set to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s Cape Canaveral at 8.04 am India time.
“NASA, Boeing, and United Launch Alliance scrubbed the launch opportunity on Monday, May 6 for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station due to a faulty oxygen relief valve observation on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket Centaur second stage,” the space agency said in a statement.
The two-member crew – NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore, 61, and Sunita Williams, 58 – were strapped into their seats aboard the spacecraft about an hour before launch activities were suspended.
They will be assisted out of the capsule by technicians to await a second launch attempt.
The duo were to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, with liftoff scheduled for 8.04 am IST on Tuesday.
Williams, who has been waiting in line for a commercial crew flight for nearly a decade, was initially assigned to the program in 2015 due to her extensive experience in spacecraft development. She was later assigned to the CFT mission in 2022.
The next available launch window for the mission is Tuesday night, but no decision was immediately made for when a second liftoff attempt would be made.
During the approximately 10-day mission, Wilmore and Williams will thoroughly test the Starliner’s systems and capabilities, paving the way for the spacecraft to begin operational crew flights to the space station.