Boeing delays its crewed mission to ISS after surprise discovery of safety issues

Boeing Space has announced the delay of its mission to the International Space Station (ISS) after engineers found issues concerning the safety of the crew members. The company was scheduled to launch two astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore to the space station on July 21 aboard the Starliner spacecraft, parts of which are flawed. "We have recommended to NASA that we reevaluate our launch window to allow for closing out the remaining technical and certification items," Boeing said in a statement. 

According to the company, the engineers found Starliner's parachute lines to be weaker than previously thought. The spacecraft uses three parachutes to safely land on Earth, but brittle lines of even one parachute can jeopardise overall safety. "We were notified by the parachute supplier of an issue, identified through testing, that reduced our safety margin. Our engineering team provided additional analysis and given that, we determined the safest course of action was to stand down for the July launch opportunity," Boeing said. 

Moreover, the tapes wrapped around the wires of Starliner to protect them from chafing have been found to be flammable under certain conditions. The teams have also discovered a valve that was restricting the flow of coolant used to cool the spacecraft's avionics. Boeing is preparing for its first crewed launch under the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission in which the two astronauts will spend about eight days in Space. 

The CFT is aimed at testing Starliner's end-to-end capabilities of transporting astronauts to and from the space station. Boeing is one of the two companies apart from SpaceX that won a commercial contract from NASA for the job. While SpaceX launched its first crew mission with Demo 2 in 2020 and has launched 38 astronauts ever since, Boeing is yet to join the race. If the CFT mission is successful, the company will launch six missions for NASA as the agency has already invested $4.2 billion in the company.