BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Boeing, NASA and United Launch Alliance’s planned Saturday launch of the Starliner space capsule to the International Space Station was scrubbed just about four minutes until liftoff.
The launch was scheduled for 12:25 p.m. and a hold was called by the ULA launch team at 12:21 p.m. at T- 3:50, according to NASA. The scrub itself was called out shortly after 12:30 p.m.
On Saturday afternoon, it was announced that “NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) are forgoing a Crew Flight Test launch attempt Sunday, June 2, to give the team additional time to assess a ground support equipment issue at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex-41 in Florida.”
#Starliner update:
— NASA's Kennedy Space Center (@NASAKennedy) June 1, 2024
Next available launch opportunities for @Commercial_Crew's Crew Flight Test will be June 5 and June 6. Teams with @NASA, @BoeingSpace and @ulalaunch are forgoing the June 2 attempt to give the team additional time to assess a ground support equipment issue.… https://t.co/TUOBjaan3O
NASA officials said they will an provide an update on next steps on Sunday, but the next available launch opportunities are Wednesday, June 5, and Thursday, June 6.
The hold was “due to the computer ground launch sequencer not loading into the correct operational configuration after proceeding into terminal count,” according to the ULA team, which said it is working to understand the cause. The Starliner spacecraft and crew remain safe, ULA added.
A news conference was held Saturday afternoon to discuss the scrubbed launch. ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno answered a question regarding the “leading suspects” behind the hold.
“The leading suspects would be either a hardware problem or a problem with the network communication between the three computers in the system that interrogates them, but we won’t really know until we get physical access and can troubleshoot that one rack that has this one card that came up slow,” Bruno said.
Watch Saturday’s news conference in the media player below:
During a news conference on Friday, Dana Weige with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program said all teams were in agreeance that they were ready to go and excited for the launch attempt Saturday.
“From a station standpoint, from our crew from our ground teams, we are ready to go fly this mission and we’re excited that we are on the doorstep at this historic mission,” Weige said.
Watch Friday’s news conference in the media player below:
On Wednesday, NASA gave the Starliner mission a “go” for launch.
[STORY CONTINUES BELOW]
“Go” to proceed with launch!@NASA and @BoeingSpace teams polled "go" for the launch of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to @Space_Station at 12:25pm ET June 1 during today’s Delta-Agency Flight Test Readiness Review.
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) May 29, 2024
Weather officers with @SLDelta45 predict 90% favorable… pic.twitter.com/Pi37UVJrCF
The astronauts for this mission are Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
“They’ve been in quarantine since end of April. They’re very excited to go to the launch soon. It’s been a great process learning more about Starliner along the way,” said astronaut Mark Fincke.
Starliner has been plagued with issues. Its initial unpiloted test flight in 2019 was derailed by software problems and communications glitches. A second uncrewed test flight was generally successful, but more problems were discovered after its return to Earth, CBS reported.
“This is a test flight. We know we’re going to learn some things. We’re going to improve,” said Mark Nappi, the Vice President of Boeing’s Commerical Crew Program “We know what we have to go do today and have been doing that over the last year and that plan closes by November to have certification review with NASA.”
The recent helium leak was first detected during a launch attempt on May 6.
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