Posted on 04/03/2019 11:11:57 AM PDT by Yossarian
WASHINGTON — Boeing confirmed April 2 it will delay the uncrewed test flight of its commercial crew vehicle, citing a tight schedule and conflicts with another launch.
In a statement to SpaceNews, Boeing said the first flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, called the Orbital Flight Test, is now scheduled for August on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. That launch had been scheduled for this spring.
In the statement, Boeing said it had entered the “final phases of production” of the Starliner that will fly that uncrewed test flight. “Our Starliner team continues to press toward a launch readiness date later this spring,” the company said, which also included the completion of a final set of testing milestones.
Boeing, though, said the issue was a pad conflict with the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) 5 military communications satellite, scheduled to launch in late June on another Atlas 5 from the same pad. Boeing said they had only a two-day launch window in May available for the Starliner launch before they would have to stand down for the AEHF-5 launch.
“In order to avoid unnecessary schedule pressure, not interfere with a critical national security payload, and allow appropriate schedule margin to ensure the Boeing, United Launch Alliance and NASA teams are able to perform a successful first launch of Starliner, we made the most responsible decision available to us and will be ready for the next launch pad availability in August,” the company said.
That delay will, in turn, push back the second test flight of the vehicle, which had been scheduled for no earlier than August. Boeing said that, even with the delay in the uncrewed test, it expects to carry out that crewed test flight, which will carry two NASA astronauts and Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson, “later this year.” That’s likely to be no earlier than November, according to industry sources.
NASA last published the schedule of commercial crew test flights Feb. 6, despite statements last fall by the agency that it would update schedules “approximately monthly” as the test flights approached. Since that last update, SpaceX carried out its first commercial crew mission, the uncrewed Demo-1 test flight, launching March 2 and returning to Earth six days later.
That most recent schedule called for a crewed flight test of SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle, carrying two NASA astronauts, in July. That date is also expected to slip, although neither NASA nor SpaceX have provided an update on the schedule for that mission or the status of reviews of the Demo-1 test flight.
Despite the delays, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said April 2 he believed crewed test flights would take place this year. “We are in the midst of watching commercial crew continue to show advancements,” he said in opening remarks at a House Science Committee hearing about the agency’s fiscal year 2020 budget request. “By the end of this year, we will be launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil to the International Space Station.”
These days, if it's Boeing, it ain't going.
They knew they knew they knew and even after those last pilots disengaged the computer it reactivated and plunged the plane to the ground.
Too much FOD? I remember when that saying was the opposite.
"Working date" - so it most probably won't even be an an August launch. Way to go with project management, Boeing and NASA!
SpaceX successfully completed their test flight last month.
Pilots and computers are Boeing's 737 Max problem. FOD is Boeing's KC-46 problem. This article is about Boeing's Starliner problem.
You need a scorecard to keep track of Boeing's 2019 problems.
In comments, people are saying the Crewed Dragon didn't fly with a full working environmental control system, and that problems took place in the Dragon - ISS hook-up, by my memory in the area of computer interfacing.
I don't have time to look up the authoritative reports on those potential problems, but it's fair to say that SpaceX isn't perfect either, but looks to be leading this race. The common point of failure is NASA.
...and I completely left out Boeing's SLS problems. Years and years behind schedule, on a program based solely on technology already developed for and proven by the Space Shuttle.
They just need to tweak the Starliner’s MCAS software...
My favorite Starliner was made by Ford in the early 1960’s. Rag top, 390 with a four barrel, and a three speed Ford-O-Matic made for sweet highway cruising.
NASA supposedly solved all these technological problems over fifty years ago, or did they?
http://centerforaninformedamerica.com/moondoggie/
Do they have to update the (MCAS)on this vehicle too? : )
“Years and years behind schedule, on a program based solely on technology already developed for and proven by the Space Shuttle.”
It is pretty pathetic. Sold as ‘well it is already proven and off the shelf!’ when it was really just a welfare program for the status quo. SpaceX’s success less to do with some sort of brilliance and more to do with the old guard being gutless dinosaurs run by bean counters.
White with black buckets and a four speed is sweet. I made a mistake. The ragtop was the Sunliner and the Starliner was the pillar-less coupe. It was a long time ago. I was only 14 in 1961.
All under the watchful eye of The Swamp. Congresscritters and their staff, or executive-branch lifers, who don't give a rat's ass about actually executing the goal of the project - EITHER in reality or in spirit - but who care passionately that the sweet, sweet government funding (to be kicked back as campaign contributions) keeps flowing.
Don't even get me started on the James Webb Space Telescope. I'm so angry about that project (Northrup Grumman run) that I could spit!
I think I goofed too, it was a Galaxie 500 with a 390. it was heavy, and would lay rubber for a half block.
How many years late?
How many Billions over ‘promised’ cost?
It's funny how the (well-deserved) disdain for all of the players is almost universal today - in the Sixties you would have been shot by your neighbors if you even hinted that US technological progress was leading us into anything short of an era of omnipotence.
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