Teams on NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test mission worked tirelessly through the night over the weekend trying to meet yet another launch attempt deadline after a last-minute problem nixed Saturday's launch attempt for Boeing's first astronaut flight — it's the latest in a string of delays over the years.
In a Sunday statement NASA said engineers and technicians worked overnight from Saturday into Sunday to assess equipment responsible for ground support and at the launch pad. The teams appeared to try and isolate key elements of the process that caused Saturday's launch to be scrubbed for it's highly-anticipated June 1 launch attempt.
The space agency said the United Launch Alliance 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. It included "the card responsible for the stable replenishment topping valves for the Centaur upper stage."
NASA said, "All three of these chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch countdown to ensure crew safety."
Space
Boeing's first astronaut flight halted at the last minute
NASA said on Saturday it knew the teams would have to forego a possible Sunday launch attempt time slot that was available to work on the issue.
Saturday, two NASA astronauts were strapped in Boeing's Starliner capsule when the countdown was halted at 3 minutes and 50 seconds by the computer system that controls the final minutes before liftoff.
Just moments before take off, there was no time to work through the latest issues, so the mission was suspended. NASA said it was due to an "observation of a ground launch sequencer," and said, "The system was unsuccessful in verifying the sequencer’s necessary redundancy."
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Launch controllers were evaluating the data, according to United Launch Alliance's Dillon Rice.
It was the second launch attempt. The first try on May 6 was delayed for leak checks and rocket repairs.
The next available opportunities to attempt a launch are on June 5 and June 6, NASA said.
