First crewed test flight of Boeing Starliner capsule postponed at the last minute By Reuters

By Joey Roulette and Steve Gorman

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) -The countdown to the launch of Boeing's (NYSE:) new Starliner space capsule on its inaugural crewed test flight was halted on Saturday for the second time in weeks due to an unspecified technical issue. , postponing the mission for at least another 24 hours.

The first trip of the CST-200 Starliner carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) has been long-awaited and long-delayed as Boeing fights to gain a bigger share of the lucrative NASA business now dominated by Elon Musk's SpaceX. .

The gumdrop-shaped Starliner capsule was ready to lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop an Atlas (NYSE:) V rocket provided by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.

But less than four minutes before liftoff, a ground system computer activated an automatic abort command that stopped the countdown clock, according to mission officials.

It was not immediately clear why the abort command was triggered or how long it would take to fix the underlying issue. But the next available launch window for the mission is Sunday around noon local time, followed by two more opportunities on Wednesday and Thursday.

Boeing's first attempt to send an unmanned Starliner to the space station in 2019 failed due to software and engineering glitches. A second attempt in 2022 was successful, paving the way for efforts to get the first manned test mission off the ground.

The May 6 countdown was halted just two hours before launch time due to a faulty pressure valve in the Atlas upper stage, followed by weeks of additional delays caused by other engineering issues, now resolved, on the Starliner itself.

The two-member crew, NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 61, and Sunita “Suni” Williams, 58, had been strapped into their seats aboard the spacecraft for a couple of hours before that launch activities on Saturday be suspended.

Technicians helped the astronauts safely exit the capsule about an hour after the flight was canceled.

It is not uncommon in the space industry for countdowns to stop at the 11th hour and for launches to be postponed for days or weeks, even when seemingly minor glitches or unusual sensor readings are detected, especially in new human-carrying spacecraft. for the first time. .

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Boeing, whose commercial aircraft operations are in disarray after several crises, desperately needs a success in space for its Starliner venture, a program several years behind schedule and more than $1.5 billion in cost overruns.

While Boeing has struggled, SpaceX has become a reliable taxi to orbit for NASA, supporting a new generation of privately built spacecraft that can carry astronauts to the ISS and, in the future, under its ambitious Artemis program. , to the Moon and eventually to Mars. .

Starliner would compete head-to-head with SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, which since 2020 is NASA's only vehicle to send ISS crews to orbit from US soil.

The flight would mark the first crewed trip to space using an Atlas rocket since the historic Atlas family of launch vehicles first sent astronauts, including John Glenn, on orbital flights for NASA's Mercury program in the 1960s.

Once launched, the capsule is expected to reach the space station after a flight of about 26 hours and dock at the research station in orbit about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

Plans call for the two astronauts to remain at the space station for about a week before riding the Starliner back to Earth for an assisted landing with parachutes and airbags in the southwestern desert of the United States, a first in the US. NASA manned missions.

The test flight comes at an especially critical time for Boeing. Its aircraft business is dealing with the fallout from a mid-air explosion of a cockpit panel door plug on a nearly new 737 MAX 9 in January, as well as earlier fatal crashes of two 737 MAX planes.

Getting Starliner to this point has been a complicated process for Boeing under a $4.2 billion fixed-price contract with NASA that has since increased to about $4.5 billion, according to a Reuters review of changes in the contract since it was awarded in 2014.

The space agency wants the redundancy of having two different American trips to the ISS, which is expected to retire around 2030. NASA is encouraging private development of new space stations that could replace the ISS after its retirement, which would could give Starliner new destinations.

Depending on the outcome of the first crewed test flight, Starliner is booked to fly at least six more crewed missions to the space station for NASA.