Launch teams hope the third time will be the charm for the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. Its most recent launch attempt came within minutes of sending Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on their way to the International Space Station, but failed at the finish line when one of three redundant computers ran into trouble.
The problem originated from what NASA described as “a failed power distribution source, which was repaired on June 2 by United Launch Alliance (ULA) engineers.” The Starliner mission management team polled “go” to proceed with a launch attempt on June 5 at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 UTC).
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage of the mission beginning more than four hours before liftoff.
“I really appreciate all the work done by the NASA, Boeing and ULA teams over the past week,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. “In particular, the ULA team worked very hard to learn more quickly about these issues, keep our NASA and Boeing teams informed, and protect us for this next attempt. “We will continue to take it one step at a time.”
Heading into the launch attempt, the 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 90 percent chance of favorable weather at liftoff with only cumulus clouds of potential concern. With some of the sunspots that caused the recent auroras around the world re-emerging this week, meteorologists are also keeping an eye on solar activity.
A launch on Wednesday would prepare the two-person crew to dock at the ISS just over 24 hours later on June 6. If all goes well with the mission, the crew will return to land in White Sands, New Mexico, on June 14.
The June 5 launch attempt is almost a month after the original May 6 launch date. That launch was scuttled by an oxygen pressure relief valve in the upper stage of the Altas 5 rocket. The mission was suspended for weeks while teams assessed a helium leak in the Starliner service module.
Coming out of a planned hold at T-minus 4 minutes during the second launch attempt, the countdown reached T-minus 3 minutes and 50 seconds when one of the three ground launch sequencer circuit boards failed to synchronize with the other two, which caused the thicket.
ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno said that because the mission faced an instantaneous launch window, there was not enough time to properly assess the problem in real time to determine if a solution could be achieved before liftoff.
“The disappointment lasts about three seconds. And then you immediately get to work and do your job,” Bruno said as he spoke to reporters Saturday after the cleanup.
Mark Nappi, Boeing's Starliner project manager, said his team was also disappointed, but that quickly turned into resilience.
“You know when you're playing and you get a bad call, you're a little irritated at first or a little frustrated at first, but you immediately focus on the next shot and that's what our teams do. “We are focused on the next release,” Nappi said. “As soon as we got into the launch process and the launch spin, I looked into the control room and everyone had their heads down, working on procedures to prepare for another attempt.”
The Starliner crew flight test comes more than four years after SpaceX launched its first astronaut missions using its Crew Dragon spacecraft. Both companies won multimillion-dollar contracts from NASA to provide transportation for their astronauts as part of the Commercial Crew Program.
After the Demo-2 mission lunch, SpaceX sent more than 50 people into space on 13 flights, 12 of which went to the ISS. Boeing is working to overcome a years-long delay due to numerous technical problems that cost the company more than $1 billion.
Once the CFT mission ends, Boeing will work with NASA to finish certifying Starliner for full crew rotation missions, which could begin in spring 2025.
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