NASA must have hoped that the second Starliner launch would be luckier than the first, but the agency will have to wait a while longer.
The launch was scheduled to take place at 13:20 (US Eastern time), but was again delayed on Tuesday morning.
An official Boeing statement said its engineers had detected “an abnormality in valve orientation in the propulsion system.” Later on the same day, the company released a follow-up statement, stating that it had “excluded the possibility of software-related issues.” This means that the technical fault may be in the valve’s hardware, making repairs much longer.
| NASA and Boeing continue to delay the launch of Starliner |
Boeing’s statement also added that it will not continue with the backup launch plan on Wednesday because the airline still needs more time to fix the problem.
Boeing is one of two corporations to win a NASA contract to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. (SpaceX is the consortium remaining with the Crew Dragon.)
Two years ago, Boeing appeared to be on track to become the first corporation to put astronauts on board. All that remains is the launch of the drone demonstration in December 2019.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned, revealing weaknesses in the software; while reminding the world of what happened to the company’s 727 Max, the plane that caused two catastrophic crashes.
The Starliner isn’t the only thing that isn’t ready, as it took Boeing more than a year to figure out where the error was, rewrite the software and verify its ship was reliable.
Tuan Vu(according to the New York Times)
Boeing is about to launch Starliner, duel with SpaceX
Boeing is expected to launch its much-anticipated Starliner spacecraft – designed to carry NASA astronauts – in an unmanned test launch to the International Space Station today.
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