They were on board the shuttle, ready to fly. Finally, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams would be able to realize this dream for which they worked all their lives. On Monday, the crew of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft planned to join the International Space Station after the organized takeoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The American astronauts had to give up. Two hours before launch time, launcher manufacturer United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced that an anomaly had been identified. The guilty ? A valve located on the Atlas V rocket. A new hiccup for this project, which is already several years behind schedule.
“The crew was never in danger,” reassured Tory Bruno, the boss of ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. A new attempt could take place on Friday at the earliest, provided that the analysis carried out by its teams proves conclusive.
Boeing is playing big on this final test mission, which should allow its ship to join the very private club of space vehicles that have transported human beings. The aerospace industry giant must demonstrate that its capsule is safe before beginning regular missions to the Space Station (ISS). With a four-year delay on its competitor SpaceX, not completely spared from setbacks either.
Hiccups at each outing
In 2019, during a first uncrewed test, the Boeing capsule could not be placed on the correct trajectory and returned without reaching the ISS. Then in 2021, while the rocket was on the launch pad to retry the flight, a problem with blocked valves, this time on the capsule, led to another postponement. The empty vessel finally managed to reach the ISS in May 2022. “It is quite typical that the development of a space vehicle for humans takes ten years,” put Mark Nappi, manager at Boeing, into perspective.