NASA confirms June 5th as new launch date for Starliner
NASA yesterday evening confirmed that the agency, ULA, and Boeing are now targeting June 5, 2024 at 10:52 am (Eastern) for the launch of the first manned launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule carrying two astronauts to ISS for a two week checkout mission.
Technicians and engineers with ULA (United Launch Alliance) worked overnight and on Sunday to assess the ground support equipment at the launch pad that encountered issues during the countdown and scrubbed the June 1 launch attempt. The ULA team identified an issue with a single ground power supply within one of the three redundant chassis that provides power to a subset of computer cards controlling various system functions, including the card responsible for the stable replenishment topping valves for the Centaur upper stage. All three of these chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch countdown to ensure crew safety.
On Sunday, the chassis containing the faulty ground power unit was removed, visually inspected, and replaced with a spare chassis. No signs of physical damage were observed. A full failure analysis of the power unit will be performed to better understand root cause. Meanwhile, ULA has completed functional checkouts of the new chassis and the cards, and all hardware is performing normally.
These kinds of technical issues happen too often on ULA launches. Company engineers always fix them, but it never appears they fix them permanently. Too often on launches they pop up again, causing more scrubs.
The goal should be to fix them so they never pop up again, and your launches can begin to launch reliably, on time. And we know it can be done, because SpaceX has done it.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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NASA yesterday evening confirmed that the agency, ULA, and Boeing are now targeting June 5, 2024 at 10:52 am (Eastern) for the launch of the first manned launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule carrying two astronauts to ISS for a two week checkout mission.
Technicians and engineers with ULA (United Launch Alliance) worked overnight and on Sunday to assess the ground support equipment at the launch pad that encountered issues during the countdown and scrubbed the June 1 launch attempt. The ULA team identified an issue with a single ground power supply within one of the three redundant chassis that provides power to a subset of computer cards controlling various system functions, including the card responsible for the stable replenishment topping valves for the Centaur upper stage. All three of these chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch countdown to ensure crew safety.
On Sunday, the chassis containing the faulty ground power unit was removed, visually inspected, and replaced with a spare chassis. No signs of physical damage were observed. A full failure analysis of the power unit will be performed to better understand root cause. Meanwhile, ULA has completed functional checkouts of the new chassis and the cards, and all hardware is performing normally.
These kinds of technical issues happen too often on ULA launches. Company engineers always fix them, but it never appears they fix them permanently. Too often on launches they pop up again, causing more scrubs.
The goal should be to fix them so they never pop up again, and your launches can begin to launch reliably, on time. And we know it can be done, because SpaceX has done it.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
They seemed to happen less frequently when ULA was launching an Atlas V every 6 to 8 weeks rather than once a year.
I suspect that at least part of their problem is the collapse of their launch cadence.
A launch in Vandenberg tonight.
VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. —
Vandenberg Guardians and Airmen will support two separate operational test launches of an Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile off the Vandenberg Test Range scheduled for the first week of June.
The first test is scheduled for June 4 from 12:01 a.m. to June 4, 2024, 6:01 a.m., Pacific Time from north Vandenberg.
The second test is scheduled for June 6 from 12:01 a.m. to June 6, 6:01 a.m., Pacific Time from north Vandenberg.
https://www.vandenberg.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3790696/unarmed-minuteman-iii-test-launch-to-showcase-readiness-of-us-nuclear-forces-sa/
A dangerous thing considering early warning systems in Russia were just destroyed. Trust is not high, will they believe us that they are unarmed?
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, Richard M. And similarly, they are probably reluctant to invest in the refresh of the Ground Support Equipment of a booster like Atlas that is at end of life!!
And I read this morning that if there is another delay they will be up against a battery-life expiry that will take about 10 days to correct.
Two Minuteman launches in quick succession could mean a demonstration of extreme accuracy… the kind that might be required to say, blow up a huge dam without having to use nukes?
Mr Z, it is fixed permanently.
On that booster, it will never break again.
Now if they were re-using boosters, that would be another story.
They are still in the mind set that the equipment only has to work correctly once.
I would not fly in that thing. Nope not at all.
From the linked article, “NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, ….remain in quarantine”.
Poor astronauts, at least they have each other.
Those Minuteman launches are consistent with routine “Glory Trips”, where they pull an operational missile out of its Northern Plains silo at “random”, remove the physics package, and the missile – with its maintenance and launch crews – goes down to Vandenburg where its entourage installs it in a silo there, loads it up with instrumentation instead of a physics package, and launches it to Kwajalein Atoll. It’s a sample used to evaluate the condition of the missiles as they continue to age, and a training diversion from the routine of a stressful yet boring job for the crews.
Having two together might be unusual, but the article mentioned that one test launch had been delayed in February; looks like they are just playing catch-up.