Boeing’s Starliner capsule has left the launch pad.
Starliner and its rocket trip, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V, rolled off the pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station right now (Might 8), heading to an meeting constructing on the website so scientists can exchange a misbehaving valve within the launcher’s higher stage.
The duo may very well be again quickly, nonetheless: They’re scheduled to launch no sooner than Might 17, kicking off Starliner’s first-ever astronaut mission, a trial run to the Worldwide House Station (ISS) known as Crew Flight Check (CFT).
Associated: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Stay updates
Groups from @ulalaunch have returned the #Starliner and Atlas V rocket to its integration facility to exchange a valve on the rocket’s higher stage. @NASA’s @BoeingSpace Crew Flight Check is focused to launch no sooner than 6:16pm ET Might 17. Extra: https://t.co/8Wxbz9eq7h pic.twitter.com/jZmhTU1v1wMay 8, 2024
CFT was initially speculated to launch on Monday night time (Might 6), however the mission staff known as issues off about two hours earlier than liftoff after noticing that an oxygen reduction valve within the Atlas V’s Centaur higher stage was opening and shutting quickly. This repeated motion was audible; staff members described it as a “buzzing.”
The deliberate launch was then pushed to no sooner than Friday (Might 10). Nevertheless, that new goal date grew to become untenable after ULA determined that the buzzing valve wanted to get replaced, an operation that required rolling the Starliner-Atlas V stack again to its integration facility.
If CFT does certainly launch on Might 17, it’s going to occur at 6:16 p.m. EDT (10:16 p.m. GMT). Every time the mission certainly lifts off, you may watch the motion reside right here at House.com, courtesy of NASA.
CFT will ship NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS for a roughly eight-day keep. The mission is designed to certify Starliner for long-duration flights to the orbiting lab, which Boeing will fly below a $4.2 billion contract awarded by NASA’s Business Crew Program in 2014.
SpaceX additionally acquired an identical deal, value $2.6 billion. Elon Musk’s firm has already accomplished seven operational crewed missions to the ISS for NASA utilizing its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket; it is in the course of its eighth such flight, which launched in March.