Boeing’s Starliner space capsule’s launch countdown for its inaugural crewed test flight was halted on Saturday, postponing the mission for at least 24 hours. The CST-200 Starliner’s first voyage carrying two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) has been highly anticipated and much-delayed as Boeing scrambles to gain a greater share of lucrative NASA business now dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Boeing’s first attempt to send an uncrewed Starliner to the space station in 2019 failed due to software and engineering glitches. A second try in 2022 succeeded, paving the way for efforts at getting the first crewed test mission off the ground.
A May 6 countdown was halted just two hours before launch time over a faulty pressure valve on the Atlas upper stage, followed by weeks of further delays caused by other engineering problems, since resolved, on the Starliner itself.
The gumdrop-shaped capsule had stood poised for blastoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop an Atlas V rocket furnished by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.
Boeing, whose commercial plane operations are in disarray after several sequential crises, badly needs a win in space for its Starliner venture, a program several years behind schedule with more than $1.5 billion in cost overruns.
Starliner would compete head-to-head with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which since 2020 has been NASA’s only vehicle for sending ISS crew to orbit from U.S. soil.
Once launched, the capsule is expected to arrive at the space station after a flight of about 26 hours and dock with the orbiting research outpost some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
The test flight comes at an especially critical moment for Boeing. Its airplane business is dealing with fallout from a midair blowout of a cabin panel door plug on a nearly new 737 MAX 9 in January, as well as previous deadly crashes of two 737 MAX jets.
