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After a month of delays that has seen NASA stay true to its motto of launching when ready, it, Boeing and the ULA are ready to give the Starliner spacecraft's crewed flight attempt another shot later this week. Starliner's CFT mission will be the first of its kind to fly astronauts to the ISS, and teams stood down from launch at the last moment on Saturday after problems with the Atlas V rocket's ground support equipment.
The rocket's operator ULA spent Sunday troubleshooting, fixing and evaluating its fixes, and the next Starliner launch attempt is penciled in for Wednesday morning local time at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
NASA, Boeing & ULA Are Ready To Fly Starliner To The ISS This Wednesday
A key component that is indispensable to launching a rocket is the ground support system, which ensures that the launch vehicle's propellants, electrical systems, and other items are in stable condition before and during launch. According to ULA and NASA, the components of the ground system that are responsible for managing the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage's valves had to be replaced since they were responsible for the launch scrub on Saturday.
Before NASA's update, ULA CEO Tory Bruno had shared regular updates for the work that his firm was doing on the pad to ensure CFT's liftoff. At a post scrub briefing, the ULA chief shared that computer card 'racks' that are responsible for controlling the Centaur's valves were not performing according to expectations, with the problem stemming from a faulty card in one of these racks.
He expanded on the problem in an X post later.
Close. Launch sequencer is a module (card) that sits in a chassis that houses 20 other modules & 2 power supplies. Two of these cassis sit in a rack with a control computer. All of that is a Remote Interface Controller. Kind of looks like a very neat server rack in an IT closet
— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) June 2, 2024
According to NASA,three separate and redundant chassis are responsible for providing power to sets of cards that manage the different operations on the Atlas V rocket and the Centaur upper stage. To ensure crew safety, all three chassis have to enter the terminal countdown, according to the space agency.
As for the work done yesterday, teams inspected the entire chassis that contained the card responsible for the scrub and decided to replace the chassis. Bruno had stressed during his press talk that these systems were generally quite reliable but had proven to be problematic in some past launches.
The CFT mission is ULA's first crewed launch. It is also the first time that NASA is launching a crew to the ISS with a non SpaceX commercial crew program partner. SpaceX's first crewed launch took place four years ago, and while it did not see scrubs due to the ground equipment, teams nevertheless had to stand down due to problems with the weather.
A Wednesday launch for Starliner will be followed by Starship's fourth test flight in Texas. For Starliner, the mission has to launch soon before before NASA has to stand down in order to let ULA replace some components on the Atlas V and allow space station teams to manage a busy manifest for the summer.
About the author: Ramish is a seasoned technology writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. He specializes in semiconductor fabrication and market analysis. With a background in finance and supply chain management - via his bachelors in Finance and a micromasters in supply chain management from MIT - Ramish combines financial rigor with deep industry insight to deliver accurate and authoritative coverage.
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