Boeing Starliner is now scheduled for a launch date no earlier than May 17. ULA has decided they need to roll the launch vehicle back to fix a pressure valve on the second stage of the rocket.
Boeing Starliner will not launch before Friday, May 10, and it may push into next week. The issue is a valve that controls liquid oxygen pressure on the upper stage of the rocket. It was humming/oscillating, and they need to examine it to see if it needs to be replaced.
If it doesn't, launch will be no earlier than Friday. If it does need to be replaced (which means the rocket needs to be rolled back), we're likely looking at launch dates into next week.
"Boeing called off its first astronaut launch because of a valve problem on the rocket Monday night."
AP reports: "The two NASA test pilots had just strapped into Boeing’s Starliner capsule for a flight to the International Space Station when the countdown was halted, just two hours before the planned liftoff."
#Starliner? Failure to launch. #777x? Failure to launch. #VC-25B? Failure to launch.
New #MoMA? Failure to launch. #SAOC "Judas"*, the E-4B Nightwatch replacement? Failure to launch.
Mit dem "Starliner" sollten längst Astronauten transportiert werden, doch das Projekt liegt weit hinter dem Zeitplan. Der erste bemannte Testflug musste nun wieder verschoben werden.
Shout out to the scammers who have a fake SpaceX youtube stream of the Boeing #starliner launch. Deepfake Elon scamming for bitcoin and dodgecoin has 100,000 (apparent) viewers to NASA's 19,000.
Next launch window is tomorrow at 10:11 pm ET, but again it's not clear whether we'll be able to recycle and try again that soon. We'll see if I'm back here tomorrow night live posting!!
Okay, the issue IS apparently related to the noises I mentioned earlier on: a noise described as "chattering" on the Atlas V's upper stage coming from an oxygen relief valve.
It's not clear why we scrubbed — priority right now is getting the crew out of the capsule. But it sounds like an issue with the ULA Atlas V rocket, not the capsule.
Suni's gross leak checks on her suit are complete, and it looks like they were troubleshooting some comm issues between Suni and Houston but they've been resolved
So far everything is going very smoothly. Which I am honestly not surprised by. This is a known launch vehicle (as opposed to SLS for the Artemis I launch) and they have tested and retested every inch of this spacecraft.