Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The spacecraft made by Boeing has canceled its launch to the International Space Station (ISS) next month. The reason is because it still takes time to check the readiness of the flight.
Officials from NASA and Boeing will need time to examine the ship’s internal components. As well as to avoid schedule conflicts with flights to other ISS.
The delay this time is the umpteenth time that Boeing has done. As for the delay now, they have decided to postpone it until next July.
“We have considered and decided the best possible launch effort is not earlier than July 21,” said Commercial Crew Program manager at NASA, Steve Stitch. The RegisterFriday (31/3/2023).
One of the concerns is the parachute system in the Boeing Starliner. They need to conduct ground tests to check the ability of the parachute to launch properly and slow the Starliner down for a safe landing.
Stitch explained that there were 600 components that had to be checked and met the requirements. NASA and Boeing will do the overall verification.
“Where we are right now is actually getting the certification work done…this is a huge amount of work that has been going on for over a year. There are 600 components that need to be qualified in the Starliner for NASA and Boeing to jointly review [dan] more than 70 hazard reports. In total there are 370 verifications,” he explained.
Meanwhile the ISS will also be very crowded during the next few months, said Joel Montalbono as the space station’s program manager. For example, Soyuz MS-23 is slated to be moved to another module of the ISS.
Meanwhile, Russian cosmonauts and United States (US) astronauts are also scheduled to do so spacewalk separated.
(nb)