Boeing and NASA will attempt to launch the private firm’s first manned mission in the first days of June, with an initial tentative date for June 1, after the series of postponements it has suffered in recent weeks due to technical problems. .
Since May 6, the mission has had five possible launch dates.
As reported by the US space agency, the Starliner ship will attempt to take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, at 12:25 local time (16:25 GMT) on Saturday, June 1. However, it also handles June 2, 5 and 6 as backup dates.
Mission engineers continue to work on a small helium leak in the service module of the Boeing spacecraft, which remains “stable,” according to NASA.
Additionally, they are completing an evaluation of the propulsion system “to understand the possible impacts of the helium system in some Starliner return scenarios,” he added.
The last date that had been announced for the launch of the CFT mission (acronym for Crew Flight Test) was this Saturday, May 25, however NASA and Boeing announced last Tuesday that that day was no longer under consideration. , although they did not announce a new date.
On May 6, the Starliner was preparing to rise towards the ISS, with NASA astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita Williams on board, from a launch complex at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
However, with about two hours left before takeoff, the launch was suspended after an anomaly was discovered in a liquid oxygen tank of the Atlas V booster rocket, from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) firm.
This company decided that the best thing was to remove the ship and the rocket from the launch pad to proceed to change a valve on the rocket’s oxygen tank, which led to a postponement of the mission shipment, which was delayed again when the found the helium leak in the Starliner service module.
Once it takes off from Florida, the spacecraft plans to stay on the ISS for about a week before returning, with a planned landing in the southwest of the United States and with the support of a parachute system.
The success of the mission will allow Boeing to obtain the necessary certifications to operate as a second provider of cargo and crew transportation to the ISS, as SpaceX already does after million-dollar contracts that both private firms have signed with NASA.
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