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An Atlas 5 rocket was brought back to its seaside firing station on Monday to be launched on Tuesday on a flight intended to put Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule into orbit for a second unmanned test. It aims to finally prove that the commercial ferry is ready to carry astronauts.
The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 is scheduled to take off from Launch Complex 41 on the Cape Canaveral Space Station at 1:20 p.m. EDT Tuesday, setting up a docking at the International Space Station on Wednesday at around 1:37 p.m. Forecasters are predicting a 60% drop chance of acceptable launch weather conditions.
Boeing, ULA and NASA had hoped to launch the mission last Friday. But the day before, shortly after a Russian lab docked with the space station, a software error on board the newly arrived module resulted in unexpected thruster shots that pushed the station out of its normal orientation.
The alarming jets stopped before any damage was done and the module’s propulsion system was “secured” the next day. But NASA officials had already chosen to delay the Starliner flight until the next available opportunity – Tuesday – and the Atlas 5 was returned to its processing facility. He was brought back to the seashore early Monday.
Boeing and SpaceX are independently building commercially developed space taxis for NASA to end the agency’s post-shuttle dependence on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for transport to and from the space station,
Under a $ 2.6 billion contract with NASA, SpaceX launched its Crew Dragon spacecraft in a successful unmanned test flight to the space station in 2019 and a flight from pilot test last year. Since then, the California rocket builder has launched two operational flights carrying two long-lived crews to the outpost.
Boeing, under a $ 4.2 billion contract, launched its Starliner in an unmanned test flight on December 20, 2019. The goal was to put the commercial crew to the test , from launch to meeting and docking with the space station, then back to school. and landing, clearing the capsule for a piloted test flight in 2020.
But major software and communications issues precluded a rendezvous with the station, and a post-theft investigation revealed a variety of other shortcomings. Boeing chose to implement a long list of recommended upgrades and changes and launch a second unmanned test flight to prove the capsule lives up to NASA’s expectations.
“We spent 18 months really trying to get this vehicle to run, to have great confidence in the success of this flight,” said John Vollmer, Boeing’s commercial crew program manager.
“We are going to learn something from this flight. There is no doubt,” he added. “But we want this flight to be a success, for learning to be something that we integrate into a safer and more robust vehicle.”
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