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WASHINGTON – Boeing confirmed on April 2 that it would delay the unprepared test flight of its commercial crew vehicle, citing a tight schedule and conflict with another launch.
In a statement to SpaceNews, Boeing said the first flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, called the Orbital Flight Test, is now scheduled for August on a Cape Canaveral United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 aircraft , in Florida. This launch was planned for this spring.
In the statement, Boeing said that he had entered the "final stages of production" of the Starliner who will perform this unprepared test flight. "Our Starliner team continues to claim a release date later this spring," said the company, which also included the completion of a final set of tests.
Boeing, however, said the problem was related to a conflict between the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) 5 military communications satellite, which was due to be launched at the end of June on another Atlas 5 of the same platform. Boeing said they only had a two-day launch window in May for the launch of Starliner before having to pull out of the AEHF-5 launch.
"To avoid unnecessary scheduling constraints, to not interfere with a critical national security payload and to allow adequate timeframe for Boeing, United Launch Alliance and NASA teams to succeed first. Launch of Starliner, we made the most responsible. decision at our disposal and will be ready for the next availability of the launch platform in August, "said the company.
This delay will in turn delay the second test flight of the vehicle, which had not been scheduled until August. Boeing said that, even with the delay in unprepared testing, he planned to conduct this crew test flight, which would ship two NASA astronauts and the Boeing test pilot, Chris Ferguson, "later this year". This is probably not until November, according to industry sources.
NASA last released the commercial flight test flight schedule on February 6, despite last fall's announcement that it would update schedules "about every month" as it approaches. test flights. Since the last update, SpaceX has completed its first commercial crew mission, the Demo-1 unmanned test flight, which began on March 2 and returned to Earth six days later.
The most recent program included a crew flight test of the SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle, carrying two NASA astronauts in July. This date should also slip, even if neither NASA nor SpaceX have provided updates to the schedule for this mission or the status of the Demo-1 test flight revisions.
Despite the delays, NASA's administrator, Jim Bridenstine, said that on April 2, he thought that test flights with crew would be held this year. "We are watching the commercial team continue to show progress," he said during an opening statement at a hearing of the House's Scientific Committee on Demand. the agency 's budget for fiscal year 2020. "By the end of this year, we will launch US astronauts on American rockets from US soil to the International Space Station. "
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