The US airline Boeing has again postponed the first manned flight of its Starliner space capsule. The company explained that the reason for this was newly emerged technical problems.
The US aviation company Boeing has again postponed the first manned test flight of its Starliner space capsule. The reason for this are new technical problems, the company said on Thursday (local time). After numerous postponements, according to previous plans, people should start into space with a Starliner capsule for the first time on July 21st.
As Boeing has now announced, the engineers encountered problems with a parachute system in the capsule during tests. In addition, the cable system used in the capsule has proven to be flammable under certain circumstances. Therefore, it was decided to postpone the flight. A new date was not initially mentioned.
In May last year, the Starliner space capsule successfully completed an unmanned flight to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time and docked there. A first attempt failed in 2019. At that time, software problems almost led to a catastrophe and the spacecraft had to return to Earth prematurely without reaching the ISS. Another test in 2021 was canceled at the last moment due to technical problems.
Because of the problems, Boeing was overtaken by the space company SpaceX by Tesla founder Elon Musk, whose Dragon capsule has long been transporting astronauts and space tourists into space.
However, the US space agency Nasa wants to expand its means of transport so that it does not run the risk of becoming dependent on Russian Soyuz capsules for the transport of astronauts to the ISS.