The first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner astronaut taxi has been pushed back several more months, with liftoff now scheduled for July 21 at the earliest.
Last month, Boeing and NASA said that Starlinerthe beginnings of the astronaut, a mission international space station (ISS) called Crew Flight Test (CFT), was well on its way to launch in april.
That timeline got pushed back a bit last week, when NASA officials said that CFT will take off after Ax-2a private flight to the orbiting laboratory operated by Houston-based Axiom Space which is tentatively scheduled for early May.
But a spring takeoff for CFT is now on the table, agency officials announced today (March 29).
“We deliberated and decided that the best launch attempt was no earlier than July 21 for CFT,” Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said at a press conference today. .
Related: Starliner: Boeing’s next-generation spacecraft for astronauts
Stich and others on today’s call cited several reasons for the latest delay. There will be considerable traffic at the ISS this spring, for example, with the liftoff of Ax-2 in May and SpaceXThe next robotic cargo mission is scheduled for June.
CFT’s launch site, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, will also be busy over the next few months. United Launch Alliance (ULA) plans to fly a mission for the US space force from Cape Canaveral with an Atlas V rocket this spring, and the very first liftoff of the new Vulcan Centaur vehicle is targeted for May from the site. (CFT will also use an Atlas V.)
NASA also wants a little more time to analyze data on Starliner’s various components, such as its parachute system, before putting astronauts on the vehicle, Stich said. And the agency and Boeing plan to conduct another ground test of a parachute subsystem – the chute that removes Starliner’s forward heat shield. That trial is scheduled for May, Stich said.
“At this time, there are really no issues or concerns with the parachute system,” Stich said. “The parachutes are installed in the vehicle, they are in good condition. It’s just a matter of going through all this data, looking at it and making sure that we are really ready to fly safely.”
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CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS for a stay of approximately eight days. If all goes well with the test flight, NASA will likely certify Starliner for operational astronaut missions in the orbiting laboratory.
A private US spacecraft is already performing these crewed taxi missions – SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which launched earlier this month on its sixth contracted astronaut flight to the ISS for NASA.
CFT will mark Starliner’s second trip to the ISS. The capsule spent about a week docked with the ISS in May 2022, on an uncrewed mission called Orbital Flight Test 2.
Mike Wall is the author of “Over there (opens in a new tab)(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). Follow us @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab)Or on Facebook (opens in a new tab) And instagram (opens in a new tab).