Boeing Starliner OFT-2 launch to space station delayed following Russian module mishap

[Elderberry]

Space.com By Chelsea Gohd 7/29/2021

Boeing Starliner OFT-2 launch to space station delayed following Russian module mishap

Liftoff is now scheduled for Aug. 3.

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will have to wait to make its triumphant trip to space.

Today (July 29), officials at NASA and Boeing announced that Boeing's uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) mission for its Starliner astronaut taxi will be delayed from Friday (July 30) to Tuesday (Aug. 3). The Aug. 3 liftoff is scheduled to take place at 1:20 p.m. EDT (1720 GMT), NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich said in a news conference today. This delay follows a mishap with Russia's Nauka module, which docked with the International Space Station this morning.

"NASA and Boeing have decided to stand down from Friday's launch attempt of the agency's Orbital Flight Test-2 mission," NASA wrote in a statement. "Currently, launch teams are assessing the next available opportunity. The move allows the International Space Station team time to continue working checkouts of the newly arrived Roscosmos' Nauka module and to ensure the station will be ready for Starliner's arrival."

This morning, the Russian space agency Roscosmos' Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM), had a bumpy ride to the orbiting lab before it successfully docked at 9:29 a.m. EDT (1329 GMT). Also known as "Nauka" ("Science" in Russian), the new segment launched July 21 and will be Russia's primary research module on the International Space Station.

Once it finally docked, things didn't get much more smoothly. Just over three hours after docking, space station cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov prepared to open the hatch between Nauka and the Russian Zvezda module, where the pair were waiting.

But as the cosmonauts prepared to open the hatch between the modules, Nauka's thrusters fired "inavertently and unexpectedly," NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said during a live broadcast of the docking on NASA TV. This moved the station 45 degrees out of attitude

More: https://www.space.com/nauka-delays-boeing-starliner-oft2-space-station-launch

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After years of turmoil, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is set for a do-over

The Verge by  Joey Roulette Jul 28, 2021

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22595730/boeing-starliner-astronaut-capsule-launch-nasa-oft2

Test-launching its astronaut capsule a second time, Boeing needs a success now more than ever

oeing,Boeing, once a major player in space, has suffered a string of setbacks, failures, and legal challenges in recent years that have chipped away its dominance in the space industry. The company’s space unit has been lapped by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and left to watch on the sidelines as other companies have moved ahead with ambitious programs, from sending astronauts to the International Space Station to returning humans to the surface of the Moon.

On Friday, Boeing will try to mend its reputation during an uncrewed test of its Starliner astronaut capsule to the ISS. This will be the second launch for the capsule, coming a year and a half after its first attempt failed to reach the space station. Eighteen months of grueling technical investigations and a string of leadership shake-ups has brought Boeing back to the launch pad for a $410 million do-over that would put it on track for its first launch with humans aboard later this year. SpaceX, Boeing’s rival in NASA’s Commercial Crew program, is far ahead, with three astronaut missions already under its belt.

The company has seen its once-close relationship with the space agency dwindle since the beginning of its Starliner program. Focusing more on SpaceX, NASA officials overlooked Boeing’s software problems that led to Starliner’s failure. Two investigations, one related to potential fraud in its Starliner program and a criminal probe into Boeing’s bid on a lunar lander contract, pushed the company’s reputation in deeper trouble, locking Boeing out of the first major contracts in NASA’s Artemis program. For Boeing, another Starliner failure is not an option.

“It’s of paramount importance that we have a successful flight,” John Vollmer, Boeing’s Starliner chief, said last week. “This is a serious and unforgiving business, so we take it very seriously... All that we’ve done in the past 18 months, we are very confident that we are going to have a good flight.”

The CST-100 Starliner capsule, a gumdrop-shaped astronaut pod designed to carry cargo and up to seven passengers, will launch without humans on Friday at 2:53PM ET. It’ll carry out the motions of a routine mission: launch to space, dock to the ISS for ten days, then come home — blazing through Earth’s atmosphere at first, then floating under parachutes the rest of the way down to a desert in New Mexico. The mission, called Orbital Flight Test-2, is one of the last tests Boeing needs to nail before its final test, flying a crew of NASA astronauts. Once Starliner wins its NASA certification like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon did last year, up to six operational missions to the ISS for the agency follow. Both companies developed their capsules under the NASA program, with Boeing’s Starliner contract at $4.5 billion and SpaceX’s at $2.7 billion.

More at link.