The first manned flight of the Starliner spacecraft had to be postponed

Boeing has delayed the first flight of the Starliner spacecraft with two American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) due to a technical problem, news agencies reported. There were two astronauts on board at the time – 61-year-old Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and 58-year-old pilot Sunita Williams

A valve on the upper stage of the Atlas V launch vehicle that was supposed to launch the spacecraft into orbit has malfunctioned, the rocket’s maker, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin United Launch Alliance (ULA), said. “NASA’s priority is safety,” the head of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Bill Nelson immediately responded. According to him, the launch will take place “as soon as we are ready”.

No date for the new start has been announced yet, AFP noted.

If successful, the American manufacturer of aerospace technology would get a chance to compete with SpaceX, which has so far provided all astronaut launches from home for the American space program.

Among other things, the astronauts’ task during the first test flight will be to test the manual controls of the craft, which is otherwise designed for fully automatic flight. The astronauts are scheduled to stay on the ISS for about a week before returning to Earth and landing by parachute in the desert of the southwestern United States.

The mission, whose cost over the years of development and after years of test flight delays exceeded the established budget by more than a billion dollars, is a preliminary step to the approval of the spacecraft for regular commercial flights. Boeing, facing numerous crises in the aviation sector, is trying to compete with SpaceX and its Crew Dragon module with the Starliner. As of 2020, this is the only means of getting NASA astronauts into orbit from American territory.

The first unmanned test flight in 2019 failed to put the Starliner into the correct orbit and thus did not even dock with the ISS. Later, the manufacturer had to deal with problems with parachutes, which slowed down the landing of the ship.

The US space agency is trying to create a broad portfolio of private companies that will carry astronauts into space for it. Commercial vessels will transport crews not only to the ISS, but also to the Moon in the future as part of the Artemis program and, according to the most ambitious plans, to Mars as well.