On June 1, Boeing, NASA and ULA attempted the first launch of the Starliner capsule with astronauts again. This was the second launch attempt of the CFT (Crew Flight Test) mission; the first was carried out on 6 May.
This time the launch operations continued until 3 minutes and 50 seconds after departure, when a computer on Earth (therefore not on board the rocket or the Starliner) commanded an interruption of operations. Given that the launch window was instantaneous, stopping operations in the last minutes before launch was equivalent to causing a scrub, i.e. a postponement.
A few hours after the attempt, Boeing (which builds the Starliner capsule), ULA (which operates and builds the Atlas V rocket), and NASA held a press conference. They said the problem was with a ground facilities computer, the responsibility of ULA.
Tory Bruno confirmed on June 2 that the issue has been resolved, and that he is now waiting for a certification test to be performed. Bruno reported that a “power chassis” has been replaced.
You can watch the live feed of the second launch attempt here.
The problems of the second attempt
The problem in particular was that one of the three computers (since they are redundant) was lagging behind the other two, and this desynchronization resulted in automatic hold. It has not yet been announced whether this is a hardware or software problem.
Until the automatic hold occurred 3 minutes and 50 seconds after launch, the preparation operations for the departure took place as expected, but there were no shortage of problems. Two hours before launch, a problem emerged with Atlas V’s second stage valves, which regulate the loading of liquid hydrogen and oxygen into the stage. The problem was due to a ground system computer, and was “solved” by switching to the use of a secondary computer.
Then, twenty minutes before launch there was a problem in the ventilation of the astronauts’ suits, due to a voltage drop when the power was switched from the ground facilities to the batteries of the Starliner capsule. The ventilation was reactivated independently by the Starliner’s internal control.
Launch postponed to June 5th
If it had been possible to solve the problem in a short time, a second launch attempt could have been made on June 2 at 18:03 Italian time. That wasn’t the case, and now the Starliner launch date is June 5, with a backup date of June 6.
If this is not done in time by June 6, ULA said it will take about 10 days to replace batteries on board the Atlas V rocket, which has been ready for launch since the end of April.
During the conference on June 1st, Steve Stich, head of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, declared that “it is human to be disappointed by this situation”, confirming how disappointed the control center was by a last-minute postponement.
Mark Nappi, vice president of Boeing, stated that currently about 80% of the Starliner certification is completed, but to conclude it we will have to wait for the CFT mission and hope that everything goes well. Only if they manage to complete all tests and analyzes on the CFT mission by November 2024, once completed, will they be able to guarantee that they will be ready for the first operational Starliner mission at the beginning of 2025.
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