Boeing on Monday night called off its first astronaut launch because of a valve problem on the rocket.
The two NASA test pilots had just strapped into Boeing’s Starliner capsule for a flight to the International Space Station (ISS) when the countdown was halted, just two hours before the planned liftoff.
United Launch Alliance chief executive Tory Bruno said an oxygen pressure-relief valve on the upper stage of the company’s Atlas rocket started fluttering open and closed, creating a loud buzz.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The valve might have exceeded its 200,000 lifetime cycles, Bruno said, which means it would have to be replaced, pushing the launch back to next week, but if engineers can determine the valve is still within that limit, the launch team could try again as soon as Friday.
It was the latest delay for Boeing’s first crewed flight, on hold for years because of capsule trouble.
Bruno said similar valve trouble had occurred in years past on a few other Atlas rockets launching satellites. It was quickly resolved by turning the troublesome valves off and back on, but the company has stricter flight rules for astronaut flights, prohibiting valve recycling when a crew is on board.
“And so we stayed with the rules and the procedures, and scrubbed as a result,” Bruno said at a news conference.
NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich acknowledged it was a tough call.
“We’re taking it one step at a time, and we’re going to launch when we’re ready and fly when it’s safe to do so,” Stich told reporters.
Within minutes of the countdown halting, Boeing’s new astrovan was back at the launch pad to retrieve Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams from the pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Starliner’s first test flight without a crew in 2019 failed to reach the ISS and Boeing had to repeat the flight. Then the company encountered parachute issues and flammable tape.
NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX a decade ago to ferry astronauts to and from the space station after the shuttle program ended, paying the private companies billions of dollars.
SpaceX has been in the orbital taxi business since 2020.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS