Flight of the piloted ship Boeing CST-100 Starliner again postponed (4 photos)

Delivery of American astronauts to the ISS at thisThe moment is decided by the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. US aircraft companies are working on alternative options for manned flights into orbit. As part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space program, two companies, Boeing and SpaceX, are developing manned spacecraft to deliver astronauts to the ISS.

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It became known that the first unmanned flightthe CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will be launched in August 2019. In the initial plans, the test flight was to take place already in April, and before that it was planned to conduct tests at the end of August 2018. Meanwhile, SpaceX has already carried out a successful test unmanned launch of the Crew Dragon and in the summer is preparing to send the first astronauts to it in space.

Manned spacecraft Starliner can accommodate up to 7 astronauts and ensure their work in open space for 60 hours. Starliner can be in orbit over six months.

Boeing project leaders reported thatThe reason for the transfer of the flight date are technical problems with ULA Atlas 5 missiles, which are responsible for launching the spacecraft into orbit. Despite the fact that the ULA engineering service could have launched in May, Boeing representatives decided not to speed up the preparation process and postponed the flight to August.

Source: spaceflightnow.com