The launch of the Crew Flight Test on the ISS has been postponed to early May due to schedule changes
The first manned launch of the Boeing Starliner capsule, which was supposed to take place in mid-April, has been postponed again. NASA and Boeing have announced that the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission is now scheduled to launch in early May due to changes to the ISS schedule.
CFT will be carried out using the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida. It will send the Starliner capsule and NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the ISS for approximately 10 days.
The test flight was originally scheduled for July last year, but technical problems led to a delay. One of them was problems with the parachute system and the use of flammable tape for the capsule. At the end of January, NASA announced that these problems had been resolved and the CFT launch was scheduled for mid-April. However, this time the mission was postponed due to a change in the ISS schedule.
Boeing is developing the Starliner capsule under a contract with NASA signed in 2014. The capsule has already made two unmanned test flights to the ISS.
The first Starliner mission, which took place in December 2019, encountered problems — The capsule was unable to dock with the ISS. However, a second launch attempt in May 2022 was successful.
In addition, NASA signed a contract with SpaceX for commercial crew delivery in 2014. The company has already completed eight operational missions with astronauts to the ISS, the latest of which, Crew-8, launched on March 3.