Boeing's Starliner launch delayed by last minute scrub

Amid the many troubles in its commercial airplane division, Boeing had a bright spot on the horizon: A planned launch of its new spacecraft, the Starliner.

After significant delays, Starliner was supposed to have its first manned mission on Monday night.

But a couple hours before countdown in Cape Canaveral, Florida, things were called off. The Starliner launch was postponed until at least Friday, and it’s just the latest in a long history of setbacks for Boeing’s commercial space taxi.

Soundside talked to Jonathan O’Callaghan, a freelance space and science journalist based in the United Kingdom who wrote about the aborted launch for Wired.

Boeing's Starliner was one of two vehicles chosen by NASA to replace the Space Shuttle, which had been retired in 2011. SpaceX was the other company that won a contract, with both companies receiving billions of dollars to help fund the effort to get humans back into space with some regularity.

Monday's launch was canceled because of a valve issue in the Atlas V, the rocket that launches the Starliner into space. The launch was designed to be a test flight which would send two astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, into Earth's orbit, test many of the spacecraft's functions, and dock successfully with the International Space Station. When the launch does happen, there will be a test evacuation of the International Space Station, with the Starliner acting as a sort of "lifeboat" in the event of a catastrophic emergency.

While the rocket issue isn't a Boeing-specific problem, the Starliner program is still years behind schedule and more than a $1 billion over budget. There have been issues with software, tape, and parachutes. O'Callaghan said these problems go back years.

"The first test flight of this vehicle without crew in 2019 failed to reach the ISS like it was supposed to," O'Callaghan explained. "It didn't manage to get there until three years later in 2022, with a separate launch."

"They've had a long line of problems with Starliner, which obviously is indicative of some of the broader issues going on with Boeing at the moment."

You can listen to Soundside's entire conversation with Jonathan O'Callaghan by clicking the play button above.