Boeing’s Starliner capsule pulls away from pad after launch delay (photos)

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by Boeing Starliner capsule left the launch pad just 24 hours after arriving.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) Starliner and his Atlas V rocket deployed at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station yesterday (July 29) to prepare for takeoff to the International space station today (July 30).

But the launch planned today was denied allow space station managers to assess the impact of unplanned thruster fire yesterday from the newly arrived Nauka module in Russia. And potential scheduling conflicts on the Eastern Channel made the weekend’s take off difficult to achieve, NASA officials said. Thus, Starliner will not take off until Tuesday (August 3) at the earliest.

Live Updates: Follow Boeing’s Starliner OFT-2 mission here

Another look at Starliner and his Atlas V on their rollback on July 30, 2021.

Another look at Starliner and his Atlas V on their rollback on July 30, 2021. (Image credit: NASA / Joel Kowsky)

Given this delay and the looming threat of bad weather on the space coast, Starliner and his rocket ride made the grim trip to their treatment facility today.

“For the protection of the #Starliner and the # AtlasV, and to avoid bad weather, we are coming back to the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF)”, ULA representatives wrote via Twitter today.

The upcoming Starliner launch will launch Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), a crucial unmanned test flight to the space station. Boeing has already taken a crack during this mission, in December 2019. But Starliner suffered several glitches, got stuck in the wrong orbit and had to return to Earth without encountering the orbiting lab.

If all goes well this time around, Starliner will be ready to carry astronauts for the first time, a milestone that could be reached by the end of the year, Boeing and NASA officials said.

Boeing developed Starliner with funding from NASA’s Commercial Crew program, which awarded a similar deal to SpaceX. Elon Musk’s company has already launched NASA astronauts three times using its Crew Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket – first during a demonstration mission to the station last summer and twice more during operational missions.

The most recent of these SpaceX missions, known as Crew-2, is still ongoing. It launched in April and is expected to end in November.

Mike Wall is the author of “The low“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book on the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Faceboo

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