that of Boeing Starliner tonight’s launch was postponed “out of an abundance of caution” just two hours before the historic liftoff. The gumming is believed to be due to a problem with the oxygen relief valve on the upper stage of the Atlas V rocket.
There are relief launch opportunities on May 7, 10 and 11. After years of delays and cost overruns of more than $1 billion, the mission is expected to be Boeing’s first attempt to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.
Once the problem with the upper stage is resolved, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V will carry the CST-100 Starliner capsule into orbit with the two astronauts on board – Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams – from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 10:34 p.m. local hour. Monday evening. The mission also marks the first time ULA’s Atlas will carry a crew. The rocket has a success rate of 100% over 99 missions. (ULA is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.)
The astronauts would now dock at the station no earlier than Thursday, where they would stay for at least eight days. The two astronauts will return to Earth in the capsule no earlier than May 16.
If all goes as planned, Boeing will finally be able to certify its Starliner for human transportation and begin fulfilling the terms of its $4.2 billion astronaut taxi contract with NASA. This contract, under the agency’s Commercial Crew program, was awarded in 2014. Elon Musk’s SpaceX also received a contract under this program, for its Crew Dragon capsule, and transports astronauts to and from from the ISS since 2020.
While SpaceX has soared in its human transportation services, flying more than a dozen crewed missions and also racking up private flights with Axiom Space and billionaire Jared Isaacman, Boeing has fallen significantly behind. The aerospace giant initially attempted an uncrewed mission to the ISS in 2019, but it failed due to technical issues; other problems delayed the next attempt, until it was finally carried out in 2022.
Last year, Boeing incurred $1.5 billion in costs due to the long-delayed Starliner program.
But despite the technical problems, NASA and Boeing emphasized their commitment to the mission and to the safety of the two astronauts.
“The lives of our crew members, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, are at stake,” NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said at a news conference late last month. “We don’t take this lightly at all.”
Indeed, for NASA, a successful mission brings the agency one step closer to having two operational transportation providers, bringing critical redundancy to the Commercial Crew program. According to the Boeing contract, it is planned for six astronaut missions.
Musk took to X, the social media platform he also owns, to comment on the mission, noting that “although Boeing got $4.2 billion to develop an astronaut capsule and SpaceX received only $2.6 billion, SpaceX finished 4 years early.
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