The launch of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying Boeing’s ill-fated Starliner capsule has been delayed an additional four days, from Friday to next Tuesday, to give engineers time to make sure a small helium leak in the crew ship’s propulsion system has been fixed. officials said Tuesday.
Liftoff from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is targeted for May 21 at 4:43 pm EDT, with docking with the International Space Station the following afternoon. The flight is expected to end around May 30 with a landing in White Sands, New Mexico.
Mission commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams were hoping to take off in the Starliner First piloted flight last Monday. They were in the process of mobilizing when the countdown was halted due to a problem with the oxygen pressure relief valve on the rocket’s Centaur upper stage.
Two days later, Atlas 5 was removed from the launch pad and returned to ULA’s nearby Vertical Integration Facility, where the suspect valve was replaced. Tests confirmed that the rocket was ready for another launch attempt.
An unrelated helium leak in the Starliner’s fuel pressurization system was noticed during the countdown last week, but remained within safe limits for flight. After the Atlas 5 and Starliner were taken back to VIF for oxygen valve replacement, managers decided to examine the helium issue more closely.
The leak was detected in the distribution manifold inside one of four “doghouse” assemblies positioned around the exterior of the Starliner’s drum-shaped service module. Each kennel has four orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) thrusters and four small reaction control system maneuvering jets.
Pressurized helium gas is used to push propellants into the rocket engines in each doghouse. The leak was determined to be originating from the flange on a single RCS thruster.
The bolts have been re-tightened and engineers believe the system is ready for flight. However, managers decided to pressurize the helium lines throughout the spacecraft to ensure that the lines were truly leak-free or within acceptable limits.
“As part of the testing, Boeing will bring the propulsion system to flight pressure as before launch and then allow the helium system to vent naturally to verify existing data and strengthen flight logic,” the company said. expression.
“Mission teams have also completed a comprehensive review of data from the May 6 launch attempt and are not tracking any other issues.”
Wilmore and Williams, both veteran Navy test pilots and astronauts with four flights to the station between them, flew back to Johnson Space Center in Houston last Friday for additional simulator training. They are expected to return to Florida later this week to prepare for another launch attempt.
Starliner is one of two commercially built crewed ferries ordered by NASA after the shuttle program ended in 2011. SpaceX won a contract worth $2.6 billion to develop the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, and Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion to develop that spacecraft. starliner
The goal was to encourage the development of independent, commercially operated spacecraft that could take astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Spacecraft from different vendors will allow NASA to continue sending crews to the space station even if a company’s ship experiences a problem.
SpaceX launched its first two-person crew in 2020. Since then, the company has launched eight NASA-sponsored crew rotation flights to the station, three commercial research missions to the laboratory, and a privately funded, two-man, two-woman trip to the station. to low Earth orbit. A total of 50 people flew into space with Crew Dragons.
Wilmore and Williams will be the first astronauts to board Starliner after a series of technical glitches including major software issues during the first pilotless test flight in December 2019 and worn propulsion system valves delayed a second uncrewed test mission. May 2022.
The second test flight was successful, but engineers faced additional questions about the parachute harness connectors and the protective tapes wrapped around the cables that posed a fire risk in the event of a short circuit. Efforts to fix these issues and others delayed the initial pilot launch until this month.
The Atlas 5 oxygen valve problem was the responsibility of United Launch Alliance. The helium leak blamed for the latest delay is on Starliner’s list, but it appears this is a relatively minor issue and wouldn’t have hindered last week’s launch.
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