Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft continues to have trouble making it to the International Space Station, with its uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 to the ISS …
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft continues to have trouble making it to the International Space Station, with its uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 to the ISS now getting pushed into next year. The test is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which sees the space agency working with private companies like Boeing and SpaceX to shuttle astronauts to the station. NASA said Friday that the team behind OFT-2 « is working toward launch opportunities in the first half of 2022. » That follows a scrubbed launch this past August. In December 2019, the first major Starliner flight test didn’t go as planned, with the uncrewed spacecraft launching, but experiencing a timing glitch and failing to reach the ISS. It did, however, safely return to Earth. The issue now, with OGT-2, has to do with an « oxidizer isolation valve issue on the Starliner service module propulsion system, » NASA said yesterday in a blog post.
