NASA: the first manned mission in Boeing's Starliner capsule has been postponed to April next year.
CTOnews.com November 5 news, Boeing's first manned space mission for NASA to fly again postponed. They now plan to launch the Starliner capsule by April 2023, when two astronauts will board the craft for a test flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA said Thursday: "The date adjustment eliminates traffic conflicts for visits to the space station (SpaceX aims to launch the next Crew-6 mission in mid-February 2023), while NASA and Boeing are working together to achieve flight readiness." "
Boeing had previously planned to conduct its first manned mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), in December 2022. But they announced at the end of August that the goal had been postponed until February 2023 to allow more time to resolve problems discovered during the capsule's first trip to the International Space Station.
In the unmanned orbital flight test mission 2 (OFT-2) completed in May this year, this was a successful test flight mission of "Starship", but encountered various software problems in the first attempt in December 2019, and finally got stuck in the wrong orbit with the orbital laboratory.
Of course, the OFT-2 mission can be said to be successful, but it cannot be said to be completely smooth. Boeing said Starliner encountered some minor anomalies, such as several problems with the thrusters, which NASA and Boeing are still studying before the CFT launch.
NASA said: "Starship and Joint Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket hardware is still on schedule to be ready in early 2023.""The joint team will continue to eliminate the of2 anomaly and work closely to determine future work to ensure that all requirements for crew flight are met." "
A CTOnews.com query found that the crew of the CFT manned mission included NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams. The mission is expected to last about two weeks.
If all goes well with subsequent flights, Starliner could receive operational mission certification and Boeing could begin flying under a contract signed with NASA in 2014.
