Boeing and NASA announced on Sunday that their teams are gearing up to launch the new Starliner space capsule on June 5 after postponing its inaugural test flight launch attempt on Saturday.
The Starliner capsule was ready for lift-off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday when a ground system computer issued an automatic abort command that halted the launch sequence.
NASA stated that its teams worked overnight to evaluate the ground support equipment at the launch pad that encountered issues during the countdown, pinpointing a problem with a ground power supply in one of the chassis that provides power to various system functions’ computer cards.
The chassis containing the faulty ground power unit was removed, visually inspected, and replaced with a spare, the space agency reported.
The CST-200 Starliner’s first crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS), carrying two astronauts, remains a significant milestone for Boeing as it strives to secure a larger share of NASA’s lucrative contracts, currently dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Once launched, the Starliner is expected to reach the space station after a flight of about 24 hours and dock with the orbiting research outpost located approximately 250 miles (402 km) above Earth.