Boeing engineers at Cape Canaveral continue troubleshooting stuck valves in the propulsion system of the company’s Starliner crew capsule in hopes of resolving the problem — and understanding what caused it — in time to take off on an unpiloted test flight before the current launch window closes later this month.
Ground teams at Cape Canaveral wheeled Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule and a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket back inside their assembly hangar Thursday for further troubleshooting of misbehaving valves inside the Starliner propulsion system. Without a quick fix, technicians will have to remove the spacecraft from the Atlas 5 rocket for more extensive work, potentially delaying the Starliner test flight by months.
A second unpiloted test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule — ordered after an initial demonstration mission fell short of reaching the International Space Station — is now scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral in August or September, leaving little margin to conduct the spaceship’s first flight with astronauts before the end of the year.
This listing shows the completed space launches from spaceports around the globe in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Dates and times are given in Greenwich Mean Time. For earlier missions, see pages listing launches from 2004 through 2008, from 2009 through 2011, from 2012 through 2014, from 2015 through 2016, and from 2017 through 2018. 2022 June 22Ariane 5 • MEASAT 3d & GSAT 24 Launch window: 2150 GMT (5:50 p.m. EDT) Launch site: ELA-3, Kourou, French Guiana Arianespace used an Ariane 5 ECA rocket, designated VA257, to launch the MEASAT 3d and GSAT 24 communications satellites. Built by Airbus Defense and Space for MEASAT, a Malaysian operator, MEASAT 3d is a multi-mission communications satellite outfitted with C-band, Ku-band, and Ka-band payloads for direct-to-home TV broadcasting and internet services over Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. GSAT 24 is a direct-to-home TV broadcasting satellite for the Indian Space Research Organization. Delayed from April and June 17. Read our full story. [June 22] June 21Nuri • PVSAT Launch time: 0700 GMT (3:00 a.m. EDT) Launch site: Naro Space
Launches of interplanetary missions can only depart Earth when the positions of the planets are just right, and officials managing the development of probes set for launch in 2021 and 2022 to explore asteroids and Jupiter says construction milestones and reviews are proceeding to keep the projects on schedule despite the coronavirus pandemic.
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