Boeing scrubs launch of first crewed mission for Starliner spacecraft | CNN (2024)

We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for the day. You can read more about the Starliner mission here.

Starliner is the result of Boeing’s efforts to develop a spacecraft to rivalSpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsuleand expand US options for ferrying astronauts to the space station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Boeing’s competitor under NASA’s commercial program — SpaceX —has become the go-to transportation providerfor the space agency’s astronauts.

Once Starliner lifts off, it could be the final major milestone before NASA deems Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft ready for routine operations to deliver astronauts and cargo to the space station.

Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance, agreed on the importance of having more than one spacecraft flying astronauts to the International Space Station.

“The nation needs two ways to get to space, at least,” Bruno said. “We’re at the finish line. Let’s take one more step.”

Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for the Commercial Crew Program at Boeing, speaks at a news conference in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for the Commercial Crew Program at Boeing, addressed a minor issue that occurred during the countdown.

When Starliner shifted from ground power to internal power, there was a slight increase in voltage that turned off the cabin fans, which keep the astronauts cool as they sit in their spacesuits in the capsule. They were able to get them turned on again quickly, Nappi said.

Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, speaks at a news conference in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

Although Starliner didn’t launch as planned, “we got really close today,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

As engineers assess the computer system responsible for triggering today’s launch scrub, they will try to determine the specific trigger.

The joint team, including NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance, expects to be able to declare the next launch opportunity late this evening.

Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance, speaks at a news conference in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance, which built the Atlas V rocket Starliner sits atop, said to assess the issue that caused the launch scrub, teams will have to get hands on this evening with something called a ground launch sequencer.

The ground launch sequencer is the computer that tells the rocket to launch, and it’s what triggered the automatic hold that prevented the launch.

Once the rocket has been drained of fuel, teams will be able to assess the triple-redundant computer system at the launchpad.

All three computers have to agree for launch to occur, Bruno said.

If the issue can be fixed tonight, Starliner could launch Sunday at 12:03 p.m. ET. If not, the next launch attempts are June 5 and June 6.

“We’ll know more, much, much later this evening,” Bruno said.

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In this screen grab from video, a panel of experts holds a news conference about the scrubbed Starliner launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

At 3 p.m. ET, a panel of experts will share an update on today’s scrubbed Starliner launch attempt.

Expect to hear from the following people:

These same experts have also been providing updates as Starliner’s mission teams have worked through other various issues over the past month leading up to today’s launch attempt.

NASA is expected to host a news conference at 3 p.m. ET today to share details about the issue that triggered an automatic hold of Starliner’s anticipated launch minutes before liftoff.

We’ll continue to share the latest updates, including the next date that Starliner might be ready to launch.

In this screen grab from video, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore exits the Starliner crew capsule in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

The hatch of the Starliner crew capsule has been opened, and Williams and Wilmore are exiting the capsule so they can return to crew quarters.

The hold likely occurred because the ground launch sequencer computer, responsible for triggering launch, detected an unexpected condition after issuing a command, and the computer wasn’t able to verify a proper response to the command, according to the live NASA broadcast.

During a recent flight readiness review, Williams acknowledged that “spaceflight is complicated.”

“Every step of the way, we’re realizing this makes us rethink how we do business,” Williams said. “We have a capable spacecraft and we have people that can find solutions. We expect to find things that will help us make the spacecraft safer to fly. These launch dates are not magical. They are an opportunity to do our job. There will be more issues, and we’ll be ready to handle them.”

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, who is slated to serve as pilot for the upcoming Boeing Starliner-1 mission that would follow a successful test flight, talked about the emotional disappointment of scrubbed launches during the live NASA broadcast.

“I remember back in the shuttle days we would play this game of getting ready for launch and then scrubbing and then coming back and getting the mission done,” Fincke said. “And I think over time, we won’t remember today, or May 6, so much because we’re going to have a great launch in our future.”

Mission teams are working to understand what caused an automatic hold of Starliner’s launch minutes before liftoff and focusing on safely extracting the crew. Currently, the rocket and spacecraft are in a safe configuration, according to the NASA broadcast.

Later today, the rocket tanks will be drained of propellant, which is called detanking.

Starliner’s next launch opportunity is 12:03 p.m. ET Sunday, but mission teams have not yet said whether they will attempt a launch tomorrow.

Meanwhile, mission teams will analyze the countdown sequence to find out what caused the hold, which remains unknown at this time.

The Ground Launch Sequencer, or computer that essentially launches the rocket, performs key actions during the final 10 minutes before launch, like pressurizing the fuel tanks for launch, transitioning the vehicle to its onboard batteries from ground electrical systems and configuring other systems for launch.

In this screen grab from video, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

Today’s historic launch of Starliner has been scrubbed.

An automatic hold triggered by the ground launch sequencer, or the computer that launches the rocket, stopped the countdown clock at 3 minutes and 50 seconds ahead of launch.

The cause of the automatic hold is not clear, but mission teams estimate a 24-hour turnaround time, according to the NASA broadcast.

Now, teams will prepare to safely extract the crew from the capsule.

Just as Starliner entered the final minutes of countdown to launch, an automatic hold was triggered by the ground launch sequencer, according to the NASA broadcast.

There is no indication yet as to what caused the hold, but the countdown clock remains at four minutes to launch.

Just before the hold, all of the mission teams participated in the “go/no go” poll and declared that Starliner was “go” for launch.

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is lifted at the Vertical Integration Facility on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on April 16.

Although today’s event will feature all the trimmings of a standard astronaut launch (SpaceX has carried out 13 of them in the past four years) — this is not a typical mission.

The inaugural Starliner flight is still considered a test — a step on the way to NASA finally deeming the spacecraft ready for regular operations.

As such, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will put the vehicle through its paces while on board.

NASA recently shared a rundown of some of the items on the checklist:

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, right, and Suni Williams speak to the media at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 25.

Williams and Wilmore have taken a measured approach when responding to questions about the Starliner spacecraft’s development woes.

“I understand it when you say ‘setback,’” Wilmore said during a news conference in May. “But honestly, with all the discovery — that’s what we would term it — that we’ve had, it’s been steps forward.

Williams added that she is prepared to go into Saturday’s mission with the expectation that small issues may arise.

NASA chief Bill Nelson also spoke about the historic (and experimental) nature of this mission during a news briefing in May:

“Because it is a test flight, we give extra attention,” Nelson added.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard is rolled out to the launchpad on May 4 ahead of its first crewed launch attempt in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Make no mistake: Today’s launch is a massive deal for Boeing.

The company’s airplane woes are one thing, but Starliner has had its own issues.

The spacecraft was developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which got rolling in 2014.

That’s when the space agency awarded Boeing and SpaceX contracts to develop spacecraft capable of getting astronauts to the International Space Station, taking the baton from the retired Space Shuttle Program. (Boeing got $4.2 billion, while SpaceX got$2.6billion.)

Boeing — a close partner of NASA’s practically dating back the agency’s inception — was expected to lead the charge.

But SpaceX emerged as the forerunner, finishing its Dragon development in 2020.

Boeing, however, has faced all sorts of setbacks: A botched test flight in 2019, myriad delays and development hang-ups, and embarrassing missteps. At certain points, some have even questioned whether Boeing would continue Starliner development at all.

For its part, Boeing has always publicly maintained that it was committed to Starliner and the company’s deal with NASA.

And now that a Starliner is sitting on the launchpad ready to carry two astronauts into the unforgiving void of outer space — it’s clear Boeing meant it.

At a recent news conference, Mark Nappi, vice president and Starliner program manager at Boeing, reflected on the spacecraft’s journey:

For this mission, NASA sees itself as just a customer, buying the use of Starliner from Boeing.

That’s how Boeing’s Starliner contract was originally set up. NASA’s Commerical Crew Progam — which the Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon operate under — was designed to hand over responsibility to the private sector.

But Boeing is also buying some services back from NASA: Namely, in mission control: Boeing is paying NASA for the use of its flight operations team.

“We buy the service from NASA with mission operations,” Mark Nappi, vice president and Starliner program manager at Boeing, said during a news briefing prior to the May 6 launch attempt.

But, he emphasized, Boeing is still the top dog when it comes to calling the shots.

The mission management team is still led by a Boeing flight director, Nappi said, and NASA personnel will report up to company officials.

In total, Starliner is hauling about 759 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station.

In addition to the replacement pump that will help the closed loop of water continue to flow on the station, the crew is bringing food, clothes, medical supplies, exercise gear, supplies and tools for the vehicle, as well as photo and media equipment.

But some special, more personal items are also packed inside the capsule.

One of those items is a thumb drive, which holds 3,500 images of artwork from children living across 35 US states and 66 different countries.

Wilmore brought two gold rings that resemble the US Navy astronaut pilot wing pin, which he had made for his father and brother, according to NASA. And he is bringing shirts from Tennessee Technological University and the University of Tennessee, his alma maters.

Williams also brought shirts from the US Naval Academy and the Sunita L. Williams Elementary School, located in Needham, Massachusetts, which she considers her hometown, as well as a diver pin and two dog tags from her Labrador retrievers.

After troubleshooting the issue in May, the space agency said a helium leak recently found within the spacecraft service module did not pose a threat to a mission.

“We looked really hard at what our options were with this particular flange (the part where the leak is located),” he said. “A fuel line, an oxidizer line and a helium line all go into the flange, which makes it problematic to work on. It makes it almost unsafe to work on.”

Rather than making a replacement to fix the leak, the teams decided that the helium leak is small enough to be manageable, Stich said.

“When we looked at this problem, it didn’t come down to making trades,” Nappi said. “It came down to, ‘is it safe or not?’ And it is safe. And that’s why we determined that we could go fly with what we have.”

During the launch countdown Saturday morning, mission teams monitored the leak, and so far, no issues have been reported.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams walk out of the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

Earlier this week, two crew suitcases for NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were swapped out for a critical part needed at their next destination: the International Space Station.

On Wednesday, a pump on the station’s urine processor assembly failed.

“That urine processor takes all of the crew’s urine and processes it in the first step of a water recovery system,” said Dana Weigel, manager for NASA’s International Space Station Program. “It then sends it downstream to a water processor which turns it into drinking water. The station’s really designed to be a closed loop.”

The pump was expected to perform until the fall, and a replacement was set to fly aboard a cargo resupply mission slated for August. But the pump’s failure “put us in a position where we’d have to store an awful lot of urine,” Weigel said.

Now, the urine has to be stored on board in containers.

In other words, Starliner’s arrival at the station tomorrow couldn’t come at a better time, and ground teams scrambled to make a switch ahead of launch.

A replacement pump was quickly swapped into Starliner’s cargo. The pump weighs about 150 pounds, so the team removed two suitcases from Starliner carrying clothes and toiletries such as shampoo and soaps handpicked by Wilmore and Williams.

There is a contingency supply of generic clothes and toiletries on the space station that the astronaut duo will use instead for their short stay, Weigel said.

NASA Astronaut Suni Williams.

With this flight, Suni Williams, who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1998, will make a bit of history as the mission’s pilot. Few women have joined the first flight of a new spacecraft.

And it won’t be her first entry in the history books.

In 2012, during a prior trip to the International Space Station, Williams became the first person to finish a triathlon in space, during which she simulated swimming using a weight-lifting machine and ran on a treadmill while strapped in by a harness so she wouldn’t float away.

That came after she ran the Boston Marathon from the space station in 2007.

Williams — a native of Needham, Massachusetts — has also spent ample time outside the space station.

During her previous missions, she notched a total of 50 hours and 40 minutes across seven spacewalks, ranking second among female astronauts.

Williams also gave a detailed tour of the space station in 2012, even showing the “orbital outhouse” (aka bathroom). Watch that here.

Ahead of this mission, Williams told reporters that she wasn’t nervous about making the jump from test piloting aircraft to spacecraft.

Williams has traveled to space twice before, once on a NASA space shuttle in 2006 and again on a Russian Soyuz capsule in 2012. She’s logged 322 total days in space.

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore arrives at the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 25.

For Starliner’s debut launch, NASA is sticking with a long tradition of staffing the novel spacecraft with astronauts who have previously trained as military test pilots: Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore.

All that time piloting experimental aircraft just might give these astronauts the proverbial “right stuff.”

“They’re checking out a lot of the systems: the life support, the manual control,” NASA chief Bill Nelson said during a May 3 news conference. “That’s why we put two test pilots on board — and of course the resumes of Butch and Suni are extensive.”

Wilmore — a Tennessee native and Navy test pilot — has spent more than 8,000 hours of his life aboard tactical jets, according to NASA.

Before he was selected for NASA’s astronaut corps in 2000, Wilmore was on exchange as flight test instructor at the Air Force Test Pilot School in California.

As an astronaut, Wilmore has already logged 178 days in space during two separate missions and conducted four spacewalks.

Wilmore once recalled a spacewalk experience during a 2018 acceptance speech for the NCAA Theodore Roosevelt Award. (Wilmore played football at Tennessee Technological University as an undergrad.)

Wilmore said that, during the spacewalk, he was surprised to find that a radiator on the space station’s exterior was reflective, like a mirror.

In this screen grab from video, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are seen during launch preparations in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

The hatch has officially closed, and NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are ensconced inside the Starliner crew capsule ahead of launch.

Now, teams will conduct leak checks to make sure Starliner is ready for flight.

In this screen grab from video, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

The countdown to Starliner’s launch this morning was progressing smoothly until teams discovered a hiccup around 10 a.m. ET.

Mission teams reported a loss of data from ground valves responsible for replenishing the liquid oxygen and hydrogen to the second, or upper stage, of the Atlas V rocket.

Both liquid oxygen and hydrogen, used to fuel the rocket, boil off as the rocket sits on the pad ahead of launch, so replenishment is ongoing until liftoff.

After evaluating the issue, which prevented the hatch from closing after the astronauts entered the crew capsule for about 45 minutes, mission teams switched to a redundant system for the valve data.

Then, teams resumed replenishing liquid hydrogen and oxygen.

Fortunately, mission teams were ahead of the expected timeline when the issue occurred, and the countdown to launch has resumed, according to the live NASA broadcast. And the issue never posed a threat to crew safety.

Starliner was only about two hours from its first crewed launch attempt on May 6 when engineers identified an issue with a valve on the second stage, or upper portion, of the Atlas V rocket. The entire stack, including the rocket and spacecraft, was rolled back from the launchpad for testing and repairs.

Then, mission teams reported a small helium leak within the spacecraft service module. The leak was traced to a part called a flange on a single reaction control system thruster, where helium is used to allow the thrusters to fire.

The space agency determined the leak did not pose a risk to the flight.

While evaluating the helium issue over the past two weeks, engineers also spotted a “design vulnerability” in the propulsion system — essentially identifying a remote scenario in which certain thrusters might fail as the vehicle leaves Earth’s orbit, without a backup method of getting home safely.

NASA and Boeing have since worked with the vendor of the thruster to come up with a backup plan to perform the deorbit burn, should that situation arise, Stich said in a May 24 news conference.

“We have restored that redundancy for the backup capability in a very remote set of failures for the direct burn,” Stich said.

The mission teams also took a close look at Starliner’s parachutes after one parachute on Blue Origin’s recent suborbital crewed flight failed to fully inflate. Starliner uses components that are similar to that parachute system, Stich said.

Blue Origin shared flight data with Boeing and NASA, and after assessing Starliner’s parachutes, the team deemed them “good to fly.”

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft sits on the launchpad during sunrise in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 1.

At the launch site, weather officials have given a 90% chance that conditions will be clear for liftoff.

So far, the only potential concerns are winds and cumulus clouds, said Mark Burger, launch weather officer for the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

“They’re watching the ground winds, which are really stronger than normally we would have expected, but we’ve got strong onshore flow from a high pressure system that’s just off the coast of North Carolina,” said Derrol Nail, launch commentator for NASA. “Overall though, we couldn’t be in a better position.”

According to weather constraints shared by Boeing, Starliner can’t take off if cumulus clouds with frozen tops are within 5 to 10 miles (8 to 16 kilometers) of the launchpad.

High winds could trigger an abort after launch, which could be a problem for the parachute-assisted landing the capsule would try to make.

“If there were a problem with the rocket, the capsule could pull off and abort and fly over the shore and land in the water,” said NASA astronaut Mike Fincke. “If the winds are too strong, it’ll make it land on the beach. And that sounds like it would be safe but actually, we’re not sure that structurally would work and we’re set up to land on the water so the winds can’t be too strong or they’ll push us for an abort. So, if we if we start to get into where the winds would push the capsule too much, then we’ll we’ll wait until another day.”

In this handout photo from NASA, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft aboard, is seen on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 1.

After a decade of development and years of delays, the time has finally arrived: Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is set to take off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:25 p.m. ET.

If successful, this mission — dubbed the Crew Flight Test — could pave the way for NASA to clear the Starliner for routine operations, giving the United States for the first time two domestic options for ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station. (Currently, NASA must use either SpaceX’s Dragon or a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for these missions.)

But this is still considered a test run.

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are veteran NASA astronauts who will be on board and prepared to take over the autonomous Starliner vehicle if something goes wrong.

Today, the Starliner will launch to space atop an Atlas V rocket before the spacecraft breaks away after reaching orbit.

The Starliner will then begin firing its own engines, and Williams and Wilmore are expected spend more than 24 hours aboard the 15-foot-wide, gumdrop-shaped vehicle as it makes its way to the space station.

If everything goes according to plan, the Starliner is expected to dock around 1:50 p.m. ET Sunday.

Williams and Wilmore expect to spend eight days inside the orbiting laboratory, joining the seven astronauts and cosmonauts already on board.

After that, they’ll get back on Starliner and make the trek home, aiming to land at one of several potential sites across the southwestern United States.