NASA, Boeing Standing Down on Aug. 4 Starliner Launch Attempt
CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA and Boeing are standing down from the Wednesday, Aug. 4, launch attempt of the agency’s Orbital Flight Test-2 to the International Space Station as mission teams continue to examine the cause of the unexpected valve position indications on the CST-100 Starliner propulsion system.
Early in the launch countdown for the Aug. 3 attempt, mission teams detected indications that not all valves were in the proper configuration needed for launch. Mission teams decided to halt the countdown to further analyze the issue.
NASA and Boeing worked through several steps to troubleshoot the incorrect valve indications, including cycling the service module propulsion system valves, within the current configuration of the Starliner and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Space Launch Complex-41 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Mission teams have decided to roll the Atlas V and Starliner back to the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) for further inspection and testing where access to the spacecraft is available. Boeing will power down the Starliner spacecraft this evening. The move to the VIF is expected to take place as early as tomorrow.
Engineering teams have ruled out a number of potential causes, including software, but additional time is needed to complete the assessment.
NASA and Boeing will take whatever time is necessary to ensure Starliner is ready for its important uncrewed flight test to the space station and will look for the next available opportunity after resolution of the issue.
11 responses to “NASA, Boeing Standing Down on Aug. 4 Starliner Launch Attempt”
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its hard to put a good spin on this. Boeing should have run a full up dress rehearsal …and its clear that there are still software issues with the vehicle…this is catastrophic after this long utter sadness from an ex
Admittedly, encountering something of this sort – and by surprise – so late in the game is not a good look. On the other hand, another conspicuous in-flight failure would have been far worse. It’s hard to criticize Boeing for wanting to avoid that again.
Still, if this latest problem takes more than another day or two to chase, the already tenuous prospect of a CFT mission occurring during the remainder of 2021 pretty much goes out the window. In that case, even if CFT could occur in 1Q 2022, Starliner’s first post-certification mission, and second overall, would probably be a crew rotation in late 3Q or early 4Q 2022. This would be a hand-off from SpaceX’s Crew-4 NASA ISS mission, which would be SpaceX’s sixth CD2 mission to ISS given that AX-1 is supposed to go up in Jan. 2022 between Crew-3 on Halloween and the April Fool’s Day Crew-4 launch next year.
I am not critical of the standdown I am critical of what seems to have happened. from what “I” understand a number of valves changed position without command…and they are unsure of why. this is a real problem
they wont solve it in a day or two in my view
Yes, Boeing really needs to starting fix things. The recent news of the delay in delivering the new USAF training jets and problems with the B787 really makes you wonder is anything Boeing makes is going to work.
If that is indeed the problem and is only being seen now in a real countdown, I’d call that as bad as SpaceX’s burst on the pad of the Dragon capsule.
Better in some ways – nothing exploded. But SpaceX isn’t fazed by explosions. It had the April 2019 CD2 kaboom figured out in weeks, along with a fix, and a full review of propellant plumbing completed a few weeks after that.
But worse in others. The 2018 episode of hypergolic incontinence by the Starliner service module should have engendered a lot more attention to valves than was apparently paid.
Then there’s the matter of how long it is likely to take Boeing to deal with this. The 2018 incident took nearly a year. And, on the basis of this recent evidence, that doesn’t seem to have been enough.
How long new investigation and correction will take is anyone’s guess, but mine is that it will be quite long. Perhaps as long or longer than was taken to “deal” with the 2018 incident. It that proves true, SpaceX will likely be into its second CC contract by the time Boeing flies its first revenue mission.
In addition to obviously being no speed demons when it comes to
finding and fixing problems, Boeing’s Starliner cadre has probably
acquired a pretty good case of the “yips” by now too. That won’t help
matters.
My experiences with these kinds of teething malfunctions this late in a development cycle is they look much worse than they really are. They happen because the integration and operations team are just now getting a full grasp of the system. If I’m right, this should cause a crystallization between the hardware and the integration and operations teams and the fix will go fairly fast. If you’re right then the integration team does not have the reality of the system as it really is fully in their grasp, and they constitute a danger to the program.
Two scenarios and only time will tell which is closer to being right. That seems to come up rather a lot in space-related efforts.
It seems you were right about that. Boeing is now living through a modern-day version of the Book of Job.
Hahha! That’s funny! So are we playing the part of Jehova and Lucifer overlooking the drama arguing about what it all means?
I miss the old-school Boeing. But they long ago passed away.