A pc controlling the Atlas V rocket’s countdown triggered an automated maintain lower than 4 minutes previous to liftoff of Boeing’s industrial Starliner spacecraft Saturday, preserving the crew take a look at flight on the bottom at the least a couple of extra days.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams had been already aboard the spacecraft when the countdown stopped as a consequence of an issue with a floor pc. “Maintain. Maintain. Maintain,” a member of Atlas V launch workforce known as out on an audio feed.
With the maintain, the mission missed an instantaneous launch alternative at 12:25 pm EDT (16:25 UTC), and later Saturday, NASA introduced groups will forego a launch alternative Sunday. The following likelihood to ship Starliner into orbit will likely be 10:52 am EDT (14:52 UTC) Wednesday. The mission has one launch alternative each one-to-two days, when the Worldwide House Station’s orbital monitor strikes again into correct alignment with the Atlas V rocket’s launch pad in Florida.
Wilmore and Williams will take the Starliner spacecraft on its first crew flight into low-Earth orbit. The capsule will dock with the Worldwide House Station round a day after launch, spend at the least every week there, then return to a parachute-assisted touchdown at one in every of two touchdown zones in New Mexico or Arizona. As soon as operational, Boeing’s Starliner will be a part of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to present NASA two unbiased human-rated spacecraft for transporting astronauts to and from the area station.
It has been an extended highway to get right here with the Starliner spacecraft, and there is extra work to do earlier than the capsule’s long-delayed first flight with astronauts.
Technicians from United Launch Alliance, builder of the Atlas V rocket, will start troubleshooting the pc glitch on the launch pad Saturday night, after draining propellant from the launch car. Early indications recommend {that a} card in one in every of three computer systems governing the ultimate minutes of the Atlas V’s countdown did not boot up as shortly as anticipated.
“You may think about a big rack that could be a massive pc the place the capabilities of the pc as a controller are damaged up individually into particular person playing cards or printed wire circuit boards with their logic gadgets,” stated Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO. “They’re all standalone, however collectively it’s an built-in controller.”
The computer systems are situated on the launch pad inside a shelter close to the bottom of the Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral House Drive Station. All three computer systems should be totally functioning within the remaining part of the countdown to make sure triple redundancy. In the mean time of liftoff, these computer systems management issues like retracting umbilical strains and releasing bolts holding the rocket to its cell launch platform.
Two of the computer systems activated as the ultimate countdown sequence started at T-minus 4 minutes. A single card within the third pc took about six extra seconds to come back on-line, though it did boot up ultimately, Bruno stated.
“Two got here up usually and the third one got here up, but it surely was gradual to come back up, and that tripped a crimson line,” he stated.
A disappointment
Wilmore and Williams, each veteran astronauts and former US Navy take a look at pilots, exited the Starliner spacecraft with the assistance of Boeing’s floor workforce. They returned to NASA crew quarters on the close by Kennedy House Middle to attend for the following launch try.
The schedule for the following attempt will depend upon what ULA staff discover after they entry the computer systems on the launch pad. Officers initially stated they might begin one other launch countdown early Sunday in the event that they discovered a easy resolution to the pc drawback, comparable to swapping out a defective card. The computer systems are networked collectively, however the structure is designed with replaceable playing cards, every accountable for totally different capabilities in the course of the countdown, to permit for a fast repair with out having to exchange your entire unit, Bruno stated.
Later Saturday, NASA introduced the launch will not occur Sunday, giving groups further time to evaluate the pc concern. The following launch alternatives are Wednesday and Thursday.
Bruno stated ULA’s engineers suspect a {hardware} drawback or a community communication glitch triggered the pc concern throughout Saturday’s countdown. That’s what ULA’s troubleshooting workforce will attempt to decide in a single day. NASA stated officers will share one other replace Sunday.
If it does not get off the bottom by Thursday, the Starliner take a look at flight may face an extended delay to permit time for ULA to alter out limited-life batteries on the Atlas V rocket. Bruno stated the battery swap would take about 10 days.
Saturday’s aborted countdown was the newest in a string of delays for Boeing’s Starliner program. The spacecraft’s first crew take a look at flight is working seven years behind the schedule Boeing introduced when NASA awarded the corporate a $4.2 billion contract for the crew capsule in 2014. Put one other method, Boeing has arrived at this second 9 years after the corporate initially stated the spacecraft might be operational, when this system was first introduced in 2010.
“In fact, that is emotionally disappointing,” stated Mike Fincke, a NASA astronaut and a backup to Wilmore and Williams on the crew take a look at flight. “I do know Butch and Suni did not sound dissatisfied after we heard them on the loops, and it is as a result of it comes again to professionalism.”
NASA and Boeing had been on the cusp of launching the Starliner take a look at flight Might 6, however officers known as off the launch try as a consequence of a valve drawback on the Atlas V rocket. Engineers later found a helium leak on the Starliner spacecraft’s service module, however managers agreed to proceed with the launch Saturday if the leak didn’t worsen in the course of the countdown.
A test of the helium system Saturday morning confirmed the leak price had decreased from a previous measurement, and it was not a constraint to launch. As a substitute, a special drawback emerged to maintain Starliner on Earth.
“Everyone is a bit dissatisfied, however you sort of roll your sleeves up and get proper again to work,” stated Steve Stich, supervisor of NASA’s industrial crew program.
