Starliner manned flight delayed anew
BOEING and NASA teams work around the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft after it landed at White Sands Missile Range’s Space Harbor early this year. The spacecraft’s first manned flight had been hit by one glitch after another, causing its reset. | BILL INGALIS/NASA/Agence france-presse
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The first manned flight of Boeing's Starliner space capsule has been postponed again, and is now scheduled for April, NASA announced Thursday.
The US space agency wants to establish a second means of transport to the International Space Station for its astronauts, with the SpaceX capsule already in service.
But Boeing has suffered a series of setbacks that significantly delayed its program, including a failed test flight in 2019. The company finally succeeded in May 2022 in reaching the ISS for the first time — without a crew on board.
Boeing had then hoped to make its first manned flight in 2022, before it was first pushed back to February 2023.
The new delay announced Thursday allows to regulate the traffic to the Space Station, NASA said in a statement, without giving more details.