Moscow. April 22. INTERFAX.RU – The second test flight in unmanned mode of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS), which was scheduled for May, will take place no earlier than the end of August, Space.com reported.
The launch of the spacecraft, created for future flights of American astronauts into orbit, is supposed to be carried out using the Atlas 5 heavy launch vehicle from the United Launch Alliance company from the 41st launch complex at the Cape Canaveral cosmodrome in Florida.
The decision to re-launch the Starliner in unmanned mode to the ISS followed after the spacecraft's first test flight, which took place on December 20, 2019, failed to dock with the ISS.
The rocket successfully brought the unmanned spacecraft to a suborbital trajectory. However, after that, it encountered a problem related to a malfunction in the system for calculating the operating time of the engines. As a result, Starliner entered a non-nominal, lower orbit for rendezvous with the ISS. The spacecraft was running out of fuel, and docking with the ISS became impossible.
He made a successful soft landing at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico. This was the first land landing of an American reentry capsule. All previous American vehicles splashed down in the ocean.
In early February, NASA announced that the first flight of Boeing's newest American spacecraft Starliner with astronauts on board to the ISS is scheduled to take place no earlier than September.
As part of a contract with NASA, Boeing received more than $ 5 billion for the development, creation and implementation of Starliner missions to transport astronauts to the ISS and return them to Earth. It is designed for a crew of up to seven people.
Another American company, SpaceX, under a similar contract with NASA, received $ 3.1 billion to develop its Crew Dragon spacecraft, which already completed a manned flight to the ISS in November last year, delivering four astronauts to the station.
