NASA postponed it to just three minutes from the scheduled takeoff time. They will try to carry out the process today at noon.
No less than three minutes before takeoff, NASA decided to postpone the launch of the first manned flight of Boeing’s new Starliner space capsule. In this way, there are now six cancellations that prevented the launch of the ship.
On this occasion, as they warned, there was a problem in the fuel loading of the Atlas V rocket, the ship in charge of transporting the Starliner out of the Earth’s atmosphere. The capsule was ready to take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The next attempt will be today, during noon, more precisely at 1:03 p.m. If takeoff fails again, new attempts will be made during the week, Wednesday and Thursday are the chosen days.
The goal is to reach the International Space Station, to compete with the Crew Dragon ship, developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. The NASA astronauts chosen for the mission, which lasts eight days, are Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, both former US Navy test pilots.
When they are finally able to carry out the launch, it is planned that once at the Space Station, a safe haven practice will be carried out, among other things, that is, an emergency trip drill, which includes an engine start. Furthermore, NASA’s idea is to take advantage of this test flight to bring about 300 kilos of material and food to the station crew.
There is also the possibility of extending the days of the mission, which would allow the astronauts to help the main crew and take additional time to rest, prior to what will be the return and subsequent landing, another moment of extreme tension.
It is worth noting that, to develop this ship, the United States space agency gave Boeing $4.2 billion, while SpaceX received $2.6 billion to manufacture the Crew Dragon. Since 2020, SpaceX has been able to resolve all issues and regularly travel to the Space Station, even carrying out the first commercial crews.
