CAPE CANAVERAL — Starliner will wait at least four more days to launch its first crew.
Boeing’s new commercial spacecraft, Starliner, canceled its first launch attempt late tonight (May 6) due to a problem with an “oxygen relief valve in the Centaur stage aboard Atlas V.” NASA posted on X. The Atlas V, the flight rocket made by United Launch Alliance, has flown missions since 2002 with a 100 percent success rate, but this is its first mission with astronauts.
“The engineering team has assessed the vehicle is not in a configuration that enables us to continue the flight today,” a Mission Control official said in a statement broadcast on NASA TV approximately two hours and one minute before the scheduled launch at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0024 GMT May 7).
Friday (May 10) is not the closest possible launch target, According to NASA. When the Starliner flies, you can watch the action here on Space.com websiteVia NASA TV.
Related: Astronaut says Boeing Starliner is ‘a big part of America’s overall strategy to reach low Earth orbit’
Once launched into space, the Starliner will carry the first crew of astronauts to the International Space Station: Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sonny Williams. Both are former US Navy test pilots as well as long-term veteran astronauts on the International Space Station. The new Starliner mission is expected to spend about a week in the orbital complex.
When Willmore and Williams fly into space, they will be the first crew to do so from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station since Apollo 7 in 1968. They will also be the first humans to fly into space aboard an Atlas rocket since Gordon Cooper did so. Mercury-Atlas 9 in 1963.
NASA aims to get the Starliner spacecraft up and running on operational missions next year to achieve its long-term goal of sending two different spacecraft aloft from American soil. The agency’s other commercial crew vendor, SpaceX, has been sending crews to the International Space Station since its first test launch in 2020.
Space.com will provide further updates on the situation as they are issued by NASA, Boeing or ULA.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2 a.m. EST on May 7 with news of a new target launch date of May 10.
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