Sunita Williams’ third mission aborted hours before lift-off due to technical glitch

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

The launch of the first crewed Boeing Starliner spacecraft flight was aborted just hours before lift-off on Tuesday due to a technical glitch. Astronaut Butch Wilmore was scheduled to accompany Sunita Williams on her third space mission aboard the spacecraft. The delay was revealed during a live NASA webcast and was ascribed to a problem with a valve in the rocket’s second stage. There has been no announcement of a revised launch date yet.

“NASA, Boeing, and United Launch Alliance scrubbed the launch opportunity on Monday, May 6 for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station due to a faulty oxygen relief valve observation on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket Centaur second stage,” the space agency said in a statement.

Today’s #Starliner launch is scrubbed as teams evaluate an oxygen relief valve on the Centaur Stage on the Atlas V. Our astronauts have exited Starliner and will return to crew quarters. For updates, watch our live coverage: https://t.co/plfuHQtv4l

— NASA (@NASA) May 7, 2024

Astronauts were strapped into their seats, ready for lift-off, when the request for a ‘scrub’ arrived, giving engineers time to check anomalous readings from an oxygen relief valve.

The Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, was scheduled to launch the Boeing Starliner at 8:04 am India time.

However, the Atlas V rocket launch was cancelled just 90 minutes before lift-off.

This is Williams’ third space mission; she previously spent 322 days in space and held the record for the most hours of spacewalk by a woman until being surpassed by Peggy Whitson.

Sunita Williams revealed that she plans to carry a special ‘lucky charm’ with her on her third space journey — an idol of Lord Ganesha. She confirmed her intention of bringing the Ganesh idol on her third space mission, according to a report in indiatimes.com

Williams said that Ganesh is her ‘good luck charm,’ and she planned to bring the statue on the commercial crew flight.  In her previous two space missions, she took the Bhagavad Gita along.

This time, she was going to be the first woman to travel on a new space shuttle’s inaugural crewed flight.

It occurs two years after the capsule in the shape of a gumdrop completed its maiden test journey to the orbiting laboratory without any humans onboard.

The Starliner’s maiden uncrewed journey to the ISS in 2019 failed.

Though no decision was made on the timing of a second lift-off attempt, the mission’s next possible launch window is Tuesday evening.

The mission gets underway at a difficult moment for Boeing, as the century-old company’s commercial aircraft segment is engulfed in a safety crisis and has already seen years of delays.

NASA is depending on Starliner’s test being successful to approve a second commercial vehicle that will transport astronauts to the ISS.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX accomplished the feat in 2020 with its Dragon capsule, breaking a nearly decade-long reliance on Russian rockets following the termination of the Space Shuttle programme.

Starliner will be launched into orbit by an Atlas V rocket manufactured by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

To test the craft’s capabilities, the crew will then assume control and drive it manually. The capsule will next arrive at the ISS and spend a week there.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow