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Tag: Starliner

  • NASA’s $4.5 Billion Starliner Deal With Boeing Cut to Just 4 Flights After Embarrassing Failures

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    Following several delays, mishaps, and a stranded crew, Boeing’s Starliner saga is not over just yet. NASA is revising its commercial crew contract with Boeing, reducing the number of Starliner missions to the International Space Station (ISS) pending rigorous testing to prove the spacecraft can get the job done.

    This week, NASA announced the modification to its 2014 contract with Boeing, reducing the number of Starliner missions to four instead of six, with the remaining two available as options. The agency also revealed that the next Starliner mission will have no crew on board but will instead be used to deliver cargo to the ISS and “allow in-flight validation of the system upgrades implemented following the Crew Flight Test mission last year,” NASA wrote. The mission, named Starliner-1, is scheduled for no earlier than April 2026 pending spacecraft certification and other mission readiness activities.

    “NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. “This modification allows NASA and Boeing to focus on safely certifying the system in 2026, execute Starliner’s first crew rotation when ready, and align our ongoing flight planning for future Starliner missions based on station’s operational needs through 2030.”

    Try and try again

    On June 5, 2024, Starliner launched NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams to the ISS for its first crewed mission. On its way to the space station, five of the spacecraft’s thrusters failed, and it developed five helium leaks, one of which was identified prior to liftoff. NASA deemed the spacecraft unfit to carry the astronauts back home and returned its crew on board SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft instead. An empty Starliner undocked from the ISS and returned to Earth later in September.

    Under its original $4.5 billion contract with NASA, Boeing was set to deliver six crewed missions to the ISS. Following a crewed test flight, the agency was hoping Starliner could begin operations by early 2025. Its flawed mission, however, meant that the spacecraft would not launch again before Boeing implemented some changes to avoid another malfunction.

    Instead of using Starliner, NASA was forced to turn to SpaceX to launch its Crew-10 and Crew-11 missions earlier this year, as well as the upcoming Crew-12 mission slated for February 2026. NASA was eager to have another commercial partner to rely on for launching its astronauts, but Boeing has thus far failed in fulfilling its end of the deal.

    The ISS is due to retire by 2030, leaving little room for Boeing to deliver NASA’s astronaut crews to the space station. Still, the agency is not giving up on the Starliner program just yet. “Certification of Boeing’s Starliner remains important to NASA’s goal of sustained human presence in low Earth orbit,” NASA wrote.

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  • NASA Clears Boeing’s Starliner From 2025 Schedule

    NASA Clears Boeing’s Starliner From 2025 Schedule

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    In a move that should surprise no one, the folks at NASA officially pulled Boeing’s Starliner off of the federal space agency’s 2025 lineup this week.

    That’s right, In a release that was billed simply as an update on the commercial space program, NASA tucked in that the next two missions toting astronauts to the International Space Station, Crew-10, targeted for no earlier than February, and Crew-11, targeted for no earlier than July, will now be aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

    It must be another bitter pill for Starliner’s team to swallow. Before Starliner finally embarked on the debacle that was its first crewed test flight back in June, the plan had been to use the spacecraft for at least one of these early 2025 flights.

    But then, of course, when Starliner arrived at the ISS, only five of its 28 thrusters were working. Then the small helium leaks that engineers that engineers had discovered before the launch multiplied. And then, after Captain Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams saw their departure date delayed by days and then weeks, NASA ultimately decided Starliner’s crew would be returning aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft instead next February.

    Starliner departed the ISS in early September, pulling off an uneventful landing in White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, without occupants and without having garnered the flight certification required for it to be used for NASA missions. Since then, NASA officials have stayed quiet about what all of this means for the future of Boeing’s commercial crew spacecraft.

    Until this discrete schedule update, which was issued on Tuesday, that is. The space agency didn’t address when – or if – the Boeing Starliner will be put into rotation, only noting in the release “the timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established.”

    Questioned about this move the following day at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy was more direct. “It’s under data review,” Melroy said, according to SpaceNews. “We need to have a decision: Do we need another test flight?”

    All things considered, some might be wondering if NASA will ultimately even opt to keep going with Starliner, especially considering the myriad problems Boeing itself is facing. After all, there’s also SpaceX, the other commercial crew company contracted with the federal space agency, right? It’s true that Elon Musk’s company just scored yet another historic launch last Sunday with its Super Heavy uncrewed launch from the South Texas Coast, which saw the 23-story-tall Super Heavy Booster descending back to its launchpad where it was caught by an enormous pair of robotic arms.

    But if NASA were to just go with SpaceX, that would leave its commercial crew program with exactly one vendor to get its astronauts to and from space, and the company CEO is the same guy who cut off Starlink during the Ukrainian offensive, according to a European Commission report issued last year, and got into a fight with the Brazilian government over disinformation on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter. NASA relying solely on SpaceX? What could possibly go wrong?

    All of this leaves NASA officials in a tricky situation here, one that we won’t likely see resolved for a while. Sure, Starliner has been running behind schedule and overbudget for years at this point and the spacecraft itself has been plagued by malfunctions, mistakes and delays, as we’ve previously noted. But they do have a spacecraft that might be certifiable soon.

    Meanwhile, Wilmore and Williams are still slated to come home in February—aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

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  • NASA, Boeing Welcome Starliner Spacecraft to Earth, Close Mission

    NASA, Boeing Welcome Starliner Spacecraft to Earth, Close Mission

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    NASA and Boeing safely returned the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft to Earth, landing at 12:01am ET on September 6th at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, and concluding a three-month flight test to the International Space Station.

    Starliner now will ship to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Central Florida for inspection and processing.

    “I am extremely proud of the work our collective team put into this entire flight test, and we are pleased to see Starliner’s safe return,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Even though it was necessary to return the spacecraft uncrewed, NASA and Boeing learned an incredible amount about Starliner in the most extreme environment possible. NASA looks forward to our continued work with the Boeing team to proceed toward certification of Starliner for crew rotation missions to the space station.”

    The flight on June 5th was the first time astronauts launched aboard the Starliner. It was the third orbital flight of the spacecraft, and its second return from the orbiting laboratory.

    NASA’s Commercial Crew Program requires a spacecraft to fly a crewed test flight to prove the system is ready for regular flights to and from the orbiting laboratory. Following Starliner’s return, the agency will review all mission-related data.

    NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched on June 5th aboard Starliner for the agency’s Boeing Crewed Flight Test from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Central Florida. On June 6th, as Starliner approached the space station, NASA and Boeing identified helium leaks and experienced issues with the spacecraft’s reaction control thrusters.

    Following weeks of in-space and ground testing, technical interchange meetings, and agency reviews, NASA made the decision to prioritize safety and return Starliner without its crew.

    Wilmore and Williams will continue their work aboard station as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew, returning in February 2025 with the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.

    “We are excited to have Starliner home safely. This was an important test flight for NASA in setting us up for future missions on the Starliner system,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “There was a lot of valuable learning that will enable our long-term success. I want to commend the entire team for their hard work and dedication over the past three months.”

    The crew flight test is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The goal of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station and low Earth orbit. This already is providing additional research time and has increased the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity’s microgravity testbed, including helping NASA prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

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  • Boeing’s Starliner returns safely to Earth, but without crew

    Boeing’s Starliner returns safely to Earth, but without crew

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    Boeing’s Starliner returns safely to Earth, but without crew – CBS News


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    Early Saturday morning, a chapter of the ongoing space saga involving two U.S. astronauts came to a close when Boeing’s Starliner capsule returned to earth from the International Space Station, but with no one aboard. Mark Strassmann has the latest.

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  • Starliner astronauts will come home in February on a SpaceX Crew Dragon

    Starliner astronauts will come home in February on a SpaceX Crew Dragon

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    After more than two months of tests and discussions, NASA has decided that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will come home in February 2025 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon, and the Boeing Starliner they flew to the International Space Station on in June will return uncrewed. In a press conference on Saturday, Steve Stich, manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said “there was too much uncertainty” around the predictions for Starliner’s thrusters to move forward with a crewed return flight.

    The plan now is that Starliner’s first crew will return with SpaceX’s Crew-9, which is scheduled to launch to the ISS at the end of September. Crew-9 was initially supposed to carry four crew members, but will instead have to go ahead with two, so as to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the way back. That spacecraft is being reconfigured with seats for the two astronauts, and Dragon spacesuits will be added to its cargo for them to wear home. By the time Wilmore and Williams depart, the duo will have been on the space station for about eight months. The Starliner flight test was only supposed to last a little over a week.

    The next step is to get Starliner ready for undocking and wrap up as an uncrewed flight test. The agency plans to conduct the second part of its readiness review for the process this coming week, and expects undocking to take place around early next month. “We are changing the separation sequence that we planned and we will review those aspects at the readiness review,” Stich said. “We’re going to go with a simplified separation technique to get away from the station a little more quickly.”

    The issue with Starliner’s thrusters has been “very complex,” Stich said, and their performance has been “challenging to predict.” Without being able to accurately predict how the thrusters would perform from undocking through the deorbit burn, the potential risks for the astronauts were just too high, he explained.

    “We have had mistakes in the past,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We have lost two space shuttles as a result of there not being a culture in which information can come forward.” With that context looming over the discussions, he said, “We have been very solicitous of all of our employees that if you have some objection, you come forward. Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and and its most routine, and a test flight by its nature is neither safe nor routine. And so the decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner home uncrewed is the result of a commitment to safety.”

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  • SpaceX’s Starship Launch from the South Texas Coast Doesn’t Explode

    SpaceX’s Starship Launch from the South Texas Coast Doesn’t Explode

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    SpaceX completed its fourth test flight of Starship, the most powerful launch vehicle ever constructed, from Boca Chica Beach on the South Texas Coast on Thursday morning, and it was one hell of a show.

    Right on cue, at 7:50 a.m. (CST) the 397-foot-tall rocket, comprised of the Super Heavy reusable booster and the Starship crew capsule, erupted from the launch pad, 32 of the 33 methane-powered Raptor engines firing up and sending it aloft with 16 million pounds of thrust. On SpaceX’s livestream, employees and spectators whooped and hollered as it climbed.

    Then they got quiet, waiting to see if the lessons from the previous attempts and the software and hardware updates from the most recent try in March were going to pay off with a successful test flight. Would they be able to put the Super Heavy and Starship through their paces and bring both through the process intact?

    It was a tall order.

    Starship’s previous test flights launched in April 2023 (IFT-1), November 2023 (IFT-2) and last March (IFT-3), each of them ending in an explosion, with the last two ending unceremoniously with a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

    Thus, going into the launch (IFT-4), SpaceX officials from founder and CEO Elon Musk down seemed intent on managing expectations. The goal would be “demonstrating the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy,” according to a SpaceX statement, by getting both through the flight without a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” Then the Super Heavy would be aiming for a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico while Starship was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean landing.

    (SpaceX seemed to have been bracing for another surprise explosion or two to the point the company’s application for a launch permit from the Federal Aviation Administration outlined the three ways that Starship and the Super Heavy were most likely to suddenly explode — due to a thermal shield failure, a loss of control during the flight or an engine failure during a landing burn – so that the explosion wouldn’t automatically trigger an FAA investigation.)

    As the countdown moved into its final 30 minutes, Kate Tice and other SpaceX commentators leading the company’s livestream video, repeatedly reminded viewers that the goal was not to recover the booster or Starship on this flight, but to simply get both through the atmosphere before they exploded. And then it all went swimmingly.

    Minutes after launching into the gray morning, the spacecraft began flipping through the air as the Super Heavy booster and Starship separated, just as planned. Once that was done, the carefully coordinated dance continued. The 165-foot-tall Starship fired up its engines and soared into space while the Super Heavy planed away.

    The booster usually exploded right around now, but this time tit didn’t and then the booster’s engines fired. The Super Heavy flipped itself upright. Within moments the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, its landing site, came into view from a camera mounted on the booster that was streaming uninterrupted as the Super Heavy completed its task thanks to Starlink satellites.

    Meanwhile, Starship’s cameras captured the gleaming expanse of space and then the atmosphere as the vehicle began its reentry. This was the other point when it seemed quite reasonable to expect another explosion.

    But instead, Starship continued coming back in, bathed in light and streaks of fire as it hurtled down, all of it continuing to stream, uninterrupted from a camera on the vessel.

    Starship continued coming back in, bathed in light and streaks of fire as it hurtled down, all of it continuing to stream, uninterrupted from a camera on the vessel.

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    The camera went in and out, and cracked and became obscured by debris as Starship plummeted. Each time, the SpaceX crowd on the livestream went quiet, as if waiting to hear the craft had come apart.

    At a little over 30 miles altitude, the steering flaps began to crumple and break apart. “The question is how much of the ship is left,” Tice said.

    But it didn’t. As starship’s altitude monitor approached zero, engineers ordered a final maneuver, flipping the spacecraft vertical, just before it dropped into the Indian Ocean.

    “Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!” Musk declared on X while the livestream at SpaceX headquarters was filled with cheering happy faces and the hosts of the event roasting marshmallows with enormous Starship-shaped silver butane lighters.

    NASA officials must be breathing a sigh of relief. First, Boeing’s Starliner, the alternative to SpaceX’s commercial crew vehicle, finally launched on Wednesday, giving the federal space agency a viable non-Musk way of getting astronauts to the ISS. At the same time, SpaceX is contracted to start taking astronauts to the lunar south pole for Artemis III, which is on the docket for 2026, and they just might pull it off.

    It’s a fast turnaround time. But working at a pace based on the engineering method of “rapid spiral development,” SpaceX is going for it. The company started the year with four Super Heavy rockets, and in March Musk stated the plan is to conduct six test flights within the year.

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    Dianna Wray

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  • Boeing Launches Astronauts For First Time After Years Of Delay

    Boeing Launches Astronauts For First Time After Years Of Delay

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    Boeing launched its first Starliner flight bound for the International Space Station with two astronauts on board, beginning a crucial final flight test of the years-delayed spacecraft. What do you think?

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    “Smart move, there aren’t any FAA investigations in space.”

    Leanna Rowe, Barista Trainer

    “I have a couple of whistleblowers I wouldn’t mind launching into the sun myself.”

    Lavinia Wise, Bliss Specialist

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  • WATCH LIVE: Crewed Starliner mission attempts takeoff from Florida’s Space Coast

    WATCH LIVE: Crewed Starliner mission attempts takeoff from Florida’s Space Coast

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Boeing, NASA and United Launch Alliance are aiming for a Wednesday launch of the oft-delayed first crewed flight for the Starliner mission.

    NASA confirmed over the weekend that the launch is scheduled for 10:52 a.m. from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

    According to a news release, the ground power supply — which scrubbed Saturday’s launch attempt — was fixed overnight and into Sunday.

    “The chassis containing the faulty ground power unit was replaced and ULA confirmed all hardware is performing normally,” the release read.

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    NASA officials announced on Monday that the Atlas V rocket being used in the Starliner launch is now “healthy” and ready to launch.

    The U.S. Space Force 45th Weather Squadron predicts a 10% chance of weather getting in the way of Wednesday’s launch attempt.

    Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams remain in quarantine at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

    Starliner has been plagued with issues. Its initial unpiloted test flight in 2019 was derailed by software problems and communications glitches. A second uncrewed test flight was generally successful, but more problems were discovered after its return to Earth, CBS reported.

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  • Boeing Starliner’s First Crewed Launch Is Back On

    Boeing Starliner’s First Crewed Launch Is Back On

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    After spending most of May delaying the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s beleaguered Starliner space capsule, NASA and Boeing officials have announced the flight is slated to go up “as soon as June 1,” i.e. at 11:25 p.m. CT, Saturday.

    And it is looking increasingly likely that the launch will actually occur this time, especially since NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, the mission commander, and Suni Williams, the pilot, finally returned to Florida on Tuesday from Houston.

    However, we won’t exactly be surprised if this launch is once again delayed. At this point, Boeing is running years behind schedule.

    Back in 2014, NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion contract to build a commercial vehicle to tote astronauts to and from the International Space Station in the wake of the space shuttle’s 2011 retirement, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion. Both companies were supposed to have crewed flights up and running by 2017, and neither hit that deadline.

    Boeing’s 2019 uncrewed launch was curtailed when a software issue blocked the spacecraft from docking with the ISS, although this was followed by a successful unmanned flight to prove it was safe for astronauts in 2022. (SpaceX launched its first crewed flight in August 2020.)

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    Boeing’s Starliner, seen here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base after the scrubbed May 6 launch, is scheduled for its first crewed test flight on Saturday.

    Photo by NASA

    Last summer, Starliner was finally scheduled for its first launch with astronauts aboard, but two months before the mission it was pushed back a year after officials discovered problems with Starliner’s parachutes and that Boeing had used flammable tape in the capsule’s cockpit.

    Earlier this month, NASA and Boeing got tantalizingly close to sending up this crucial final test flight. On May 6, Wilmore and Williams were already tucked into the capsule stacked atop a ULA Atlas V rocket and just two hours from launch when the mission was scrubbed due to a faulty valve. Both astronauts were sent back to Houston’s Johnson Space Center shortly afterward, and have remained there until now, despite NASA’s repeated scheduling and rescheduling of the launch window.

    Although NASA and Boeing engineers soon addressed the issue that triggered the first launch cancellation, they discovered a helium leak and design issues with the ship’s propulsion system.

    After running a detailed analysis of the helium leak over the past few weeks, engineers ultimately concluded that the leak was “small and stable” and unlikely to impact Starliner’s planned week-long sojourn with the International Space Station.

    By then engineers had also discovered technical failures on the spacecraft’s propulsion system that could prevent Starliner from conducting the necessary de-orbit burn to bring the craft back to Earth, triggering more delays.

    “It has been important that we take our time to understand all the complexities of each issue,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, explained, according to a release. “We will launch Butch and Suni on this test mission after the entire community has reviewed the teams’ progress and flight rationale at the upcoming Delta Agency Flight Test Readiness Review.”

    NASA held that flight review on Wednesday and cleared Starliner for launch following this detailed analysis of the spacecraft, according to the release.

    Now all that’s left to do is to send Williams and Wilmore up, and that very well could happen this Saturday.

    As if to underscore just how far behind Boeing is, SpaceX is set for an uncrewed launch that will take Starlink satellites to space on Friday evening from the same site (Cape Canaveral Space Force Station), complete with a plan for the Falcon 9 rocket to land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

    On top of that, next week SpaceX plans to conduct the fourth test flight of Starship and the Super Heavy, the enormous rocket that NASA is counting on to get boots on Mars by the 2030s.

    Pending Federal Aviation Administration approval, on June 5, the capsule and rocket will lift off from SpaceX’s Starbase launchpad on the lip of the South Texas Coast. The goal will be a “soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico” for the Super Heavy and “controlled entry” for Starship, according to a SpaceX statement issued ahead of the launch.

    If they pull this one off, it will represent a significant step forward in making a mission to Mars a reality. Meanwhile, fingers crossed that Boeing can manage to get it’s crewed spacecraft through this final flight test, the one SpaceX already pulled off back in 2020.

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    Dianna Wray

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  • Boeing Starliner’s Crewed Launch Plans Stall Out

    Boeing Starliner’s Crewed Launch Plans Stall Out

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    After pushing the planned launch of Boeing Starliner’s first flight toting actual humans into orbit multiple times in this month alone, the crewed test flight has been delayed once again, according to a NASA release.

    Tellingly, this time officials haven’t even set a new possible launch date although they did state that this Saturday’s launch was put on hold because engineers are still trying to resolve a helium leak on the spacecraft.

    “The team has been in meetings for two consecutive days, assessing flight rationale, system performance, and redundancy,” the federal space agency stated. “There is still forward work in these areas, and the next possible launch opportunity is still being discussed.”

    It’s not entirely a shock that Starliner won’t be taking astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wimore to space this week. Boeing’s space capsule project has been beset with delays and other problems for years now, as we’ve previously noted, from the aborted unmanned 2019 test flight due to software issues to 2023 concerns about Starliner’s reentry parachutes and the company’s use of flammable electric tape on the space capsule that saw these first crewed test flights delayed until this year.

    The flight has since been pushed back repeatedly, starting with the first attempted launch, on May 6. Williams and Wilmore were strapped into the capsule sitting atop an Atlas V rocket on a launchpad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and two hours from liftoff when the launch was scrubbed due to a valve issue with the rocket, made by the United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.

    The official plan was to only delay the mission for a few days while engineers dealt with the problem. However, Williams and Wilmore were sent back to Houston shortly after that first attempt, implying that at least somebody at NASA suspected that the announced plans for a May 17 launch were more aspirational than realistic.

    Soon enough, NASA announced the test flight wouldn’t take place before May 21, this time because of a helium leak traced back to a flange in a thruster on Starliner’s crew module. They were only pushing the date this time around to give engineers a chance to understand the leak and figure out a plan for flying the spacecraft as-is, according to that release.

    And then, a few days later, the flight was rescheduled for May 25. That time, Boeing engineers had concluded that the leak was stable and didn’t pose a flight risk, but they were still giving engineers time “to develop operational procedures to ensure the system retains sufficient performance capability and appropriate redundancy during the flight,” NASA stated in that release.

    And now here we are. “NASA will share more details once we have a clearer path forward,” the most recent release concluded, in a revealing line. When NASA announced the latest delay, the space agency didn’t issue any updates on that helium leak or any other concerns or questioned that triggered pulling the launch
    from the calendar.

    Right now, the only thing we know for certain is that there’s currently no new launch date being offered up. But considering that Boeing’s Starliner project is years behind schedule, millions of dollars over budget, and years behind SpaceX’s commercial crewed flight success, that lack of a new date says a lot about what NASA isn’t saying.

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    Dianna Wray

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  • Boeing Starliner’s Crewed Test Flight? Delayed Again

    Boeing Starliner’s Crewed Test Flight? Delayed Again

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    Anyone betting that Starliner would finally have its first crewed test on Tuesday bet wrong, because the Starliner launch has been bumped again, according to a NASA release.

    This marks the third time this month that this test flight— the crucial final hurdle Boeing must clear before it can finally start toting astronauts into space, as we’ve previously noted—has been delayed.

    This time, the launch date has been moved to no sooner than 3:09 p.m. EST, this Saturday, May 25 because they needed more time to “work through spacecraft closeout processes and flight rationale.”

    Specifically, the last delay was because Starliner engineers discovered a leak on the service module. They’ve now figured out that the leak is coming from a flange on a control system thruster that uses helium to get the thruster to fire. Officials also have found, according to the release, that the leak is stable and shouldn’t be an issue for the flight.

    “Pressure testing performed on May 15 on the spacecraft’s helium system showed the leak in the flange is stable and would not pose a risk at that level during the flight,” according to the federal space agency’s release. “The testing also indicated the rest of the thruster system is sealed effectively across the entire service module. Boeing teams are working to develop operational procedures to ensure the system retains sufficient performance capability and appropriate redundancy during the flight.”

    But since pushing the flight to this Saturday, at the earliest, gives officials more time to further evaluate the leak before two astronauts get into the capsule and get shot into space at the top of an Atlas V rocket, that’s what they’ve done.

    On the upside, the two astronauts assigned to this mission haven’t been cooling their heels in Florida all this time. Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Willmore had been in pre-flight training at the John F. Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Florida ahead of the May 6 launch that was scrubbed just two hours before takeoff but have been back in Houston since May 10 to be with their families, according to the release.

    They’ll head back to Florida whenever it gets close to an actual launch time. So at least there’s that.

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    Dianna Wray

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