United States: The first crewed test flight of Boeing’s new Starliner space capsule has been delayed for at least twenty-four hours due to the cancellation of the launch countdown.
On Saturday, the postponement was revealed live on a NASA livestream. Launch projections earlier in the day had indicated a 90 percent possibility of favorable weather.
However, according to mission authorities, a ground system computer initiated an automatic abort command fewer than four minutes before liftoff, pausing the countdown clock.
The CST-200 Starliner’s first trip to the International Space Station (ISS) with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams has been eagerly awaited and repeatedly delayed.
Image: NASA @ XIt was earlier in the short but inspiring speech that mission commander Wilmore told tens of thousands of people watching the live video that it was a terrific day to be proud of their country.
A malfunctioning pressure valve on the Atlas upper stage also prompted a countdown on May 6 to be stopped only two hours before launch, and weeks of additional delays were incurred due to other engineering issues with the Starliner that have since been fixed.
Although Sunday is an option as a backup date, it is unknown at this point whether the spaceship will be prepared for launch.
Due to technical and software issues, Boeing’s initial attempt to launch an unmanned Starliner to the space station in 2019 was unsuccessful. However, a retry in 2022 was successful, opening the door for attempts to launch the first crewed test voyage.
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