Starliner Scrubs. Again.

NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance Forego Launch Opportunity on June 2nd As Well

The debut of Boeing’s Starliner with crew aboard will have to endure at least one more delay as teams work to assess the latest issue that prevented a launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station early this afternoon.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will presumable remain at Kennedy Space Center and still in quarantine awaiting the next launch attempt, which could come NET June 5th at 10:52 AM EDT.

Almost Got There

At T-minus three minutes and fifty-six seconds, a hold was called, the launch countdown halted, and the launch attempt was scrubbed for the day.

The reason?

“NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) scrubbed today’s launch opportunity due to the computer ground launch sequencer not loading into the correct operational configuration after proceeding into terminal count.”

NASA

In short, a computer systems failure.

Specifically, the failure was in the system that, “Controls things like retracting umbilical [connections from the pad to Atlas V] and the Pyro pin that release the bolts at the base of the rocket, so that when ignition happens the rocket is free to fly away and do its job,” said United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno in a press briefing held after the scrub.

Additionally, Bruno added, “For that system we do require all three systems to be running triple redundancy and to assure that [inside] each of those three big racks those three big computers do a health check and they monitor to see that those cards came up. When they were commanded to come up and be begin doing their job two came up normally the third one came up but it was slow to come up, and that tripped a red line that created an automatic hold.”

With that, the scrub, because the mission profile is one based on an instantaneous launch, means Atlas V must depart at a specific moment to catch up to the International Space Station in the most efficient manner. This is normal for ISS-bound crewed flights, dating back to the days of the Space Shuttle.

Teams Forego June 2nd Launch Window

Later in the evening, NASA issued this update:

“NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) are forgoing a Crew Flight Test launch attempt Sunday, June 2, to give the team additional time to assess a ground support equipment issue at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex-41 in Florida.”

NASA

So, there is no fast turnaround, no launch tomorrow, and Starliner is still on the ground awaiting its first crewed mission.

Starliner Is Not To Blame

It would be fashionable to blame Boeing and Starliner for this latest delay, but in reality, it’s their partner, United Launch Alliance, that has not delivered in both launch attempts. On May 8th, a valve issue on Atlas V scrubbed the mission, and today, another ULA hardware problem has kept Starliner on the ground. In both cases, Starliner was ready for flight, but unfortunately, its ride to space was not. Whether ULA is third-time lucky remains to be seen.

There are two more potential launch dates, June 5 and June 6 available for Starliner before Atlas V will need to have maintenance on its battery systems, a process said to take at least ten days. Not too long after that ISS scheduling comes back into play, with Crew 9 scheduled to to head to ISS aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 Crew Dragon in August.