After years of delays and stumbles, Boeing was finally poised to launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA and a Massachusetts native was set to pilot the spacecraft.The mission was scrubbed Monday night.Veteran NASA astronaut Suni Williams, a native of Needham, Massachusetts, and namesake of an elementary school, and her crewmate were set to take Boeing’s Starliner capsule for a test flight and a weeklong stay at the ISS.Starliner was scheduled to blast off on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket 10:34 p.m. Monday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, but ULA launch director Tom Heter III made the decision to stop launch operations for the night just two hours before scheduled takeoff.The decision to scrub the launch came approximately 25 minutes after Williams boarded the spacecraft.At 9 p.m., NASA announced that the Starliner launch was scrubbed so that teams could evaluate an oxygen relief valve on the Atlas V Centaur Stage.NASA said Williams and mission commander Butch Wilmore had exited the spacecraft and would return to crew headquarters.White with black and blue trim, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is about 10 feet tall and 15 feet in diameter. It can fit up to seven people, though NASA crews typically will number four. The company settled on the name Starliner nearly a decade ago, a twist on the name of Boeing’s early Stratoliner and the current Dreamliner.NASA turned to U.S. companies for astronaut rides after the space shuttles were retired. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has made nine taxi trips for NASA since 2020, while Boeing has managed only a pair of unoccupied test flights.Williams and mission commander Butch Wilmore are retired Navy captains who spent months aboard the space station years ago. They joined the test flight after the original crew bowed out as the delays piled up. Wilmore, 61, is a former combat pilot from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and Williams, 58, is a helicopter pilot from Needham, Massachusetts. The duo have been involved in the capsule’s development and ahead of Monday insisted Starliner was ready for prime time, otherwise they would not have strapped in for the launch.“We’re not putting our heads in the sand,” Williams told The Associated Press recently. “Sure, Boeing has had its problems. But we are the QA (quality assurance). Our eyes are on the spacecraft.”No one was aboard Boeing’s two previous Starliner test flights. The first, in 2019, was hit with software trouble so severe that its empty capsule couldn’t reach the station until the second try in 2022. Then last summer, weak parachutes and flammable tape cropped up that needed to be fixed or removed.The launch was set to be the first time astronauts rode an Atlas since NASA’s Project Mercury, starting with John Glenn when he became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.“We’re super careful with every mission. We’re super, duper, duper careful” with human missions, said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Boeing is committed to six additional Starliner trips for NASA, which will take the company to the station’s planned end in 2030.The Associated Press contributed to this report.
After years of delays and stumbles, Boeing was finally poised to launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA and a Massachusetts native was set to pilot the spacecraft.
The mission was scrubbed Monday night.
Veteran NASA astronaut Suni Williams, a native of Needham, Massachusetts, and namesake of an elementary school, and her crewmate were set to take Boeing’s Starliner capsule for a test flight and a weeklong stay at the ISS.
Starliner was scheduled to blast off on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket 10:34 p.m. Monday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, but ULA launch director Tom Heter III made the decision to stop launch operations for the night just two hours before scheduled takeoff.
The decision to scrub the launch came approximately 25 minutes after Williams boarded the spacecraft.
At 9 p.m., NASA announced that the Starliner launch was scrubbed so that teams could evaluate an oxygen relief valve on the Atlas V Centaur Stage.
NASA said Williams and mission commander Butch Wilmore had exited the spacecraft and would return to crew headquarters.
White with black and blue trim, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is about 10 feet tall and 15 feet in diameter. It can fit up to seven people, though NASA crews typically will number four. The company settled on the name Starliner nearly a decade ago, a twist on the name of Boeing’s early Stratoliner and the current Dreamliner.
NASA turned to U.S. companies for astronaut rides after the space shuttles were retired. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has made nine taxi trips for NASA since 2020, while Boeing has managed only a pair of unoccupied test flights.
Williams and mission commander Butch Wilmore are retired Navy captains who spent months aboard the space station years ago. They joined the test flight after the original crew bowed out as the delays piled up. Wilmore, 61, is a former combat pilot from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and Williams, 58, is a helicopter pilot from Needham, Massachusetts. The duo have been involved in the capsule’s development and ahead of Monday insisted Starliner was ready for prime time, otherwise they would not have strapped in for the launch.
“We’re not putting our heads in the sand,” Williams told The Associated Press recently. “Sure, Boeing has had its problems. But we are the QA (quality assurance). Our eyes are on the spacecraft.”
No one was aboard Boeing’s two previous Starliner test flights. The first, in 2019, was hit with software trouble so severe that its empty capsule couldn’t reach the station until the second try in 2022. Then last summer, weak parachutes and flammable tape cropped up that needed to be fixed or removed.
The launch was set to be the first time astronauts rode an Atlas since NASA’s Project Mercury, starting with John Glenn when he became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.
“We’re super careful with every mission. We’re super, duper, duper careful” with human missions, said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Boeing is committed to six additional Starliner trips for NASA, which will take the company to the station’s planned end in 2030.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
