The repeatedly postponed first manned flight of the new Boeing Starliner has been postponed again. The Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission to the ISS was previously scheduled for mid-April, but now, as NASA and Boeing announced the day before, it will start later.
CFT: “We are currently planning an early May launch due to the space station schedule.” The mission will launch on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Spaceport – the Starliner with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will travel to the ISS for about ten days.
The test flight was supposed to take place in July of last year, but it was hindered by technical problems: the insufficient strength of the straps and fasteners of the Starliner parachutes and the flammable insulating tape that wrapped a large part of the wires in the capsule. In late January, NASA announced that the problems had been resolved and that the launch was scheduled for mid-April. But now the next obstacle is the schedule of the ISS.
Boeing is developing the Starliner under a contract with NASA signed in September 2014. CFT was preceded by two unmanned test flights. In December 2019, the spacecraft failed to dock with the ISS but managed to do so on a second attempt in May 2022. In September 2014, NASA also awarded a contract to SpaceX for commercial manned missions. Elon Musk’s company has already launched eight NASA missions to the ISS – the latest, Crew-8, launched last Monday.
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