MADRID, June 3 (EUROPA PRESS) –
After another unsuccessful launch attempt, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is scheduled to take off on June 5 at its first flight with astronauts from NASA to the International Space Station.
The Starliner spacecraft is powered by an Atlas V rocket from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) company. On Saturday, the Ground Launch Sequencer found an anomaly and automatically aborted the mission when there were three minutes and 50 seconds left for takeoff from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
ULA technicians and engineers worked overnight and Sunday to evaluate ground support equipment on the launch pad that had problems during the countdown, NASA reports.
The ULA team identified a problem with a single ground power supply inside one of three redundant chassis that provides power to a subset of computer cards that control various system functions, including the card responsible for the stable refueling valves for the upper stage of the Centaur. These three chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch countdown to ensure the safety of the crew.
On Sunday, the chassis containing the faulty ground power unit was removed, was visually inspected and replaced with a replacement chassis. No signs of physical damage were observed. A complete power unit failure analysis will be performed to better understand the root cause. Meanwhile, ULA has completed functional checks on the new chassis and cards, and all hardware is operating normally.
Mission managers have opted for the next launch attempt on June 5, with a 90 percent probability of good weather conditions. There is another opportunity available on Thursday, June 6.
NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, The crew, who have been waiting to travel to the International Space Station since early May, remain in quarantine at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
YEARS OF DELAYS
Starliner is the result of the contract that NASA signed with Boeing and Space X to transport its astronauts to the International Space Station. While Space X’s Crew Dragon has been flying astronauts regularly to the orbital complex since May 2020, Boeing’s Starliner has suffered years of delays.
This capsule has been launched only twice to date, on uncrewed test flights to the orbital laboratory. Starliner suffered several problems on the first mission, which launched in December 2019, and failed to reach the orbital complex as planned. But he achieved it on his second attempt, in May 2022.
