NASA engineers have been forced to call off Monday’s launch of the Starliner spacecraft due to a technical issue. The decision to scrub the launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida came just two hours before the scheduled liftoff time of 10:34 p.m. ET. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams had already been strapped into their seats inside the Starliner spacecraft at the time of the decision.
Details are still coming through about the decision to stop the countdown clock, but commentators on NASA’s official live stream said it was due to an issue with an oxygen relief valve on Centaur, the second stage of the Atlas V rocket.
A NASA official said shortly after the decision was announced that it was not made lightly and was done out of an abundance of caution. NASA chief Bill Nelson reiterated the remarks, saying in a post on social media that the “first priority is safety.”
The scrub is a big disappointment for the crew and launch team, though once the issue has been resolved, a new date for liftoff should be able to be arranged without too much delay. Commentators on the live stream suggested that another launch attempt could be made even as early as tomorrow.
Considering the large number of issues with the Starliner during its multi-year development, it will come as a relief for Boeing that Monday night’s problem has nothing to do with its spacecraft. Now its down to ULA engineers to investigate the issue with the Centaur stage of the Atlas V rocket and to fix it so that the launch team can go again.
