Boeing's Starliner space capsule blasted off from Cape Canaveral for the International Space Station. However, a timing error made the capsule fire its engines at the wrong time, using up too much fuel
)’s new astronaut capsule on Friday from reaching the orbit it needed to get to the International Space Station, U.S. space agency NASA said, cutting short a critical unmanned test mission.
The thwarted mission took place as the aerospace giant sought an engineering and public relations win in a year punctuated by a corporate crisis over a ban on its 737 MAX jetliner following fatal crashes. “That was the absolutely the right decision for this mission,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the news conference.
“I would say that that’s safe to take off the table at this point,” Bridenstine said of Starliner’s prospects of docking to the space station as originally planned. “It’s not worth it given the amount of fuel that we’ve burned.” Both Boeing and NASA said that while the capsule had not reached the intended orbit it was in a stable position.
The test is one of the most daunting milestones required by NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to certify the capsule for eventual human spaceflight - a long-delayed goal set back years by development hurdles from both Boeing and SpaceX.
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