Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsule is prepared for launch to the International Space Station in a do-over test flight at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. July 29, 2021. REUTERS/Joe Skipper
NASA and Boeing have postponed an attempt to launch the company's CST-100 Starliner capsule to the International Space Station as planned on Friday after Russian cosmonauts aboard the orbital outpost reported a problem with a newly docked module.
The Starliner launch delay was announced by NASA on Thursday, a day before the Starliner was due for blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a Boeing Lockheed Martin Corp Atlas V rocket.
A previous uncrewed Starliner test launch to orbit in 2019 ended with a nearly catastrophic failure of the spacecraft to dock with the space station.
The countdown to a do-over test flight was halted on Thursday after cosmonauts aboard the space station informed their mission control in Moscow of difficulties with the newly arrived Nauka module after it had docked with the orbiting laboratory a few hours earlier.
"NASA and Boeing have decided to stand down from Friday's launch attempt of the agency's Orbital Flight Test-2 mission," NASA said in a statement posted online, adding that launch teams were assessing the next available launch opportunity.
"The move allows the International Space Station team time to continue checkouts of the newly arrived Roscosmos' Nauka module to ensure the station will be ready for Starliner's arrival," the U.S. space agency added.
