spacetoday.net: NASA and Boeing set June 1 launch date for Starliner

Posted: Mon, May 27, 2024, 9:21 AM ET (1321 GMT)
CST-100 Starliner on pad for OFT launch (ULA)

NASA and Boeing are targeting a June 1 launch of the first crewed CST-100 Starliner spacecraft after resolving a helium leak in the spacecraft. At a briefing Friday, officials said they had concluded a helium leak in one thruster in the spacecraft, which caused a series of launch postponements, was not a safety risk and could be managed without repairing the faulty component, a process that would have taken months. During that review, engineers discovered a "design vulnerability" in Starliner's propulsion system that could have prevented the spacecraft from performing a deborit burn in the event of a rare series of failures. A new backup deorbit burn approach has been developed as a workaround for this launch while Boeing investigates long-term hardware or software changes for future missions.