WASHINGTON — The primary crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner can be delayed a minimum of one other week and a half to exchange a defective valve in its Atlas 5 launch automobile.
NASA introduced late Might 7 that the Crew Flight Take a look at (CFT) mission, whose launch was scrubbed Might 6 due to a malfunctioning valve within the rocket’s Centaur higher stage, had been rescheduled for no sooner than Might 17 at 6:16 p.m. Jap.
The prolonged delay will permit United Launch Alliance to roll the rocket again to its Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) hangar close to the pad to exchange a liquid oxygen strain regulation valve within the Centaur. That valve began oscillating after the stage was loaded with liquid oxygen, making a buzzing noise observed by launch pad crews.
At a briefing after the Might 6 scrub, Tory Bruno, president and chief govt of ULA, mentioned the priority was that the vibration might have triggered the valve to method its rated lifetime of 200,000 cycles. The valve was vibrating at 40 hertz, he famous.
He mentioned then that engineers would look at if these vibrations concerned full cycles of the valve. If that’s the case, then ULA must exchange the valve. Nonetheless, if the valve was solely partially transferring, then it was attainable the valve was not nearing its design life and could possibly be retained. Officers mentioned on the briefing that they may attempt to launch once more the subsequent day, however later revised the launch date to the subsequent alternative, Might 10, earlier than this newest delay.
In NASA’s assertion concerning the new delay, the company mentioned that whereas the valve vibration was dampened as soon as the valve was closed after the scrub, that vibration returned twice whereas propellant was being offloaded from the rocket.
“After evaluating the valve historical past, knowledge signatures from the launch try, and assessing the dangers relative to continued use, the ULA staff decided the valve exceeded its qualification and mission managers agreed to take away and exchange the valve,” NASA said.
The brand new date is considerably later than projections given on the briefing. Bruno mentioned the process to exchange the valve, which entails putting in tooling to assist the stage, takes a number of days. “It’s unlikely we might be ready to make one other try earlier than Sunday [May 12],” he mentioned.
That was not one of many days NASA had recognized as a launch date, with backup dates for the unique launch try of Might 7, 10 and 11. Steve Stich, NASA industrial crew program supervisor, estimated the subsequent obtainable launch alternative after Might 11 to be Might 14 or 15.
There are not any near-term schedule conflicts for a launch on the Worldwide House Station, to which Starliner will dock. “We did clear our summer time schedule deliberately to present us loads of runway for this CFT mission,” Dana Weigel, NASA ISS program supervisor, mentioned on the briefing.
The 2 astronauts flying the CFT mission, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will stay on the Kennedy House Middle in pre-flight quarantine for this newest delay, NASA mentioned.
