Washington: The much awaited first crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule aims to launch in mid-April next year, according to a new update by NASA.
Starliner’s Crew Flight Test, or CFT, mission has been repeatedly delayed — from December 2022 to February 2023, then to March, then to April, and then to July.
In June, the company shared that the flight was delayed over parachute and wiring safety issues. Boeing and NASA officials in August confirmed that those problems could not be resolved in time for a launch this fall.
“The first crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft, named NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), is planned for no earlier than mid-April,” read the mission update by NASA.
The update listed no reason for the delay. The CFT aimed to send NASA astronauts and test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a demonstration flight to prove the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system.
In addition, the target date for the first operational flight of the Boeing spaceship has also been delayed, to early 2025 from summer 2024, the officials added in the update.
Boeing had signed a contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme to fly operational missions to and from the space station with Starliner in 2014. However, it has faced a series of setbacks.
Its debut uncrewed orbital flight mission in 2019 did not go exactly as planned, requiring it to make another try before putting astronauts on board for the crewed flight test. The capsule, however, made a successful repeat of that mission in 2022.
The flammable tape issue and the parachute soft links issue were both present on that flight, but the mission was a success, NASA officials said.
Starliner aims to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, spend approximately eight days docked to the space station, and return to Earth with a parachute and airbag-assisted ground landing in the desert of the western US.
(IANS)
