With another short delay, Boeing Starliner now set for launch try Saturday
NASA and Boeing need more time to make sure a helium leak on the CST-100 Starliner is a low enough risk to send humans into space.
So the launch of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams has been pushed to Saturday, aiming for a 3:09 p.m. liftoff from Cape Canaveral atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
The duo were sitting in the capsule on the pad with about two hours left on the countdown clock on May 6 when a problem with a fluttering valve on the upper stage of the Atlas V forced mission managers to scrub the launch.
After rolling the rocket back to ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility near the pad and switching out the valve, managers also found a small helium leak on the Starliner’s service module.
The leak was traced to a flange on a reaction control thruster, and teams performed pressure tests that showed the leak was “stable and would not pose a risk at that level during the flight,” according to a NASA news release.
A launch on Thursday then became the goal, but pushing it back to Saturday gives Boeing teams time to work through operational procedures to “ensure the system retains sufficient performance capability and appropriate redundancy during the flight.”
Wilmore and Williams remain in Houston under quarantine.
When the vehicle flies, it will be the first human spaceflight for Starliner as Boeing tries to catch up to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
If all goes well, Starliner can join Dragon for a regular rotational astronaut ferry service to and from the International Space Station as soon as February.