Starliner Launch Delayed After Issue Identified With Rocket Valve
The launch of a Boeing spacecraft was postponed Monday after concerns emerged with a component on the rocket set to propel it into space.
Rocket company United Launch Alliance announced the delay about two hours before it expected to blast off the Starliner vehicle stacked on top of its booster.
Monday’s launch would have marked the first crewed flight for Starliner, which was set to carry National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the International Space Station. Liftoff had been scheduled for 10:34 p.m. Eastern time from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The problem that officials identified involved an oxygen valve on part of ULA’s Atlas V rocket that is used to maintain pressure in a tank that holds liquid oxygen, which is used in the propellant mixture for part of the vehicle.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the launch could be attempted during backup dates, which include a slot Tuesday evening and later on this week.
Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, said teams from the company would work overnight to determine whether the valve needs to be replaced. He described the problem valve as “buzzing” in a manner that violated its guidelines for launching Starliner with the astronauts on board.
“If it were a satellite, we would have simply cycled the valve, the buzzing would have stopped, finished the count and launched,” Bruno said. “That’s not what we planned for a crew mission and so we stayed with the rules and procedures and scrubbed.”
Delays aren’t unusual with space launches. The stakes are especially high during human missions.
Officials involved in the planned launch have said that they would postpone the flight if any safety risks emerged. Bill Nelson, the administrator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and a former astronaut himself, reiterated that point Monday evening after the delay, saying that safety is the agency’s first priority. “We go when we’re ready,” he said in a post on X.
Atlas V consists of two major components: a booster and Centaur, its so-called upper stage. Starliner sits on top of Centaur, which in turn rests on the booster. The booster powers everything off the launchpad.
During the flight, Centaur is designed to separate from the booster, propelling Starliner into a proper orbit. Then, Starliner separates from Centaur and flies on its own.
The valve that caused ULA to call off the attempt Monday is located on Centaur.
Wilmore and Williams had exited from Starliner after the flight was postponed and returned to crew quarters.
Atlas V has been a workhorse rocket for ULA for years. The vehicle has never launched astronauts before, however, and ULA had taken steps to prepare it for the heightened stakes of transporting two people during the first leg of the Starliner flight.
ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has been developing a new rocket, and plans to retire the Atlas V.
Boeing has been building to a crewed launch for years and had hoped to have completed the first Starliner mission with astronauts by now. NASA about a decade ago hired Boeing and SpaceX to develop astronaut vehicles for crew rotations to and from the space station, seeking two different methods to transport astronauts on U.S. vehicles.
Boeing has had problems developing the vehicle, facing challenges with everything from software coding to stuck valves. SpaceX completed its first astronaut mission for NASA four years ago and has been regularly providing flights for the agency since then.
SpaceX has demonstrated its ability to transport NASA astronauts, completing nine launches of crews so far. About a year ago, it delayed a crewed flight, citing an issue with a clogged filter that reduced the flow of an ignition fluid. That mission took off not long after the problem was resolved.
On Monday, SpaceX launched another batch of satellites for its Starlink internet service into low-earth orbit from Florida.
Write to Micah Maidenberg at [email protected]