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The spacecraft that Boeing plans to use to transport NASA astronauts to the International Space Station suffered a major setback when, during a test of its abortion system in June authorities discovered a thruster leak. In his statement to the Washington Post, Boeing said that "we are conducting a thorough investigation with the help of our NASA and our industry partners, we are confident that we have found the cause and that we are going from there. before with corrective measures. " delay its launch schedule, and is another setback for a program that has faced a series of problems. Vice President Mike Pence is expected to announce the crews for the first missions at a ceremony to be held in early August at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida
. With SpaceX, Boeing is under contract with NASA to equip space station astronauts. The so-called "commercial program" would restore NASA's ability to steal humans from the United States – a capability that was lost when the space shuttle retired in 2011. Since then, the space agency has had to rely on Russia to steal its space astronauts, at a cost of more than $ 80 million per seat
As part of the program, the Boeing contract was worth up to $ 4.2 billion dollars; SpaceX was $ 2.6 billion for the same number of flights.
The first test launches of the program with crews on board were supposed to take place this year. But a recent report from Government Accountability says the company's schedules are "aggressive" and that they "have set ambitious rather than realistic dates, but often delay them."
SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Elon Musk, also encountered challenges and is working to show NASA that she has solved a problem that has caused the explosion of one of its unused Falcon 9 rockets in 2016.
In its report, GAO said that further delays in the program could "disrupt access "in the space The US space agency relied on Boeing and SpaceX to fly astronauts, but the GAO said these delays could ensure that their spacecraft is not certified before the last flights that NASA got for its astronauts. In other words, if the delays were to persist, NASA could end up with no way to get to NASA's 100-billion-orbiting laboratory. to build and operate.
In a statement, NASA said that "flying safely has always overtaken the schedule. As our partners finalize their systems, we evaluate the remaining technical details and timelines for the flight tests with and without crew. "
The agency announced that it would announce an update of test flight schedules next month.
said to have discovered the thruster leak at the time of the flight. Test of emergency stop in June at the test facility of White Sands in New Mexico
"The engines have been running successfully for the entire duration". 19659002] The GAO report also said that he was concerned about another problem with the abortion system, causing him to "tumble down, which could pose a threat to the safety of the crew. 19659002] Boeing said that he solved this problem, and that it "would meet or exceed all NASA requirements."
First published by the Washington Post
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