Boeing faces a major setback with the spacecraft he designs to fly NASA astronauts

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 has faced challenges and is working to show NASA that it has solved a problem that has caused the explosion in the world. One of his unmanned Falcon 9 rockets in 2016.

In his report, the GAO said that further delays could disrupt "the space station – which would be a huge embarrassment for NASA." Space is relying on Boeing and SpaceX to fly astronauts, but the GAO said the delays could mean that their spacecraft are not certified before NASA's last flights for Russian astronauts on Russian rockets. would maintain an American presence on the station until early 2020.

NASA could end up with no way to get to the NASA's $ 100-billion orbiting laboratory to build and to operate [1965] 9002] In a statement, NASA said that "flying safely has always taken precedence over the calendar. our partners are finalizing their systems, we are evaluating the remaining technical details and schedules of the flight tests with and without crew. "

The agency announced that it was planning to announce an update of flight schedules next month.

She discovered the thruster leak during the emergency stop test in June at the White Sands test facility in New Mexico

"The engines turned on successfully and worked for the entire duration," she said. ment. "During the engine shutdown, an anomaly occurred that caused a propellant leak."

The GAO's report also worried about another problem with the fuel system. abortion, which could compromise the safety of the crew. "

Boeing said that he solved this problem, and that it" would meet or exceed all NASA requirements. "