NASA cancels Boeing Starliner attempt to dock with space station, will bring spacecraft home early - The Washington Post

In a tweet, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said a burn needed for the spacecraft to meet up with the space station “did not happen” and that officials are “working the issue.”

In a subsequent statement, Boeing said: “The spacecraft is currently is in a safe and stable configuration. Flight controllers have completed a successful initial burn and are assessing next steps. Boeing and NASA are working together to review options for the test and mission opportunities available while the Starliner remains in orbit.”

No more details were immediately available.

The launch appeared to go flawlessly at 6:36 a.m. as the Atlas V rocket, operated by the United Launch Alliance, took off just before dawn. After a few minutes, the first engine cut off, the second stage took over, and finally the spacecraft was flying freely. At 31 minutes after launch, the Starliner’s engines were supposed to ignite.

The flight is a key test for Boeing, which has faced withering criticism in the wake of two crashes of its 737 Max airplanes, killing 346 people. But in a news conference here Thursday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he was completely confident in the company.

Spaceflight “is very different from what a commercial airliner does day in and day out,” he said. “We’re very comfortable with Boeing as a company. Look at the history that Boeing has delivered on behalf of the United States of America. There is a lot of history here. There is a lot of capability here.”

He added that NASA’s engineers had been “embedded side by side with Boeing’s engineers” and that “every piece of this spacecraft is being certified by NASA.”

No astronauts were on board Friday, but the spacecraft is carrying a mannequin named “Rosie,” after Rosie the Riveter, and holiday gifts for the astronauts on the station.

Since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, the space agency has been forced to rely on Russia to ferry its astronauts to the space station, the orbiting laboratory some 240 miles up. In 2014, Boeing and SpaceX won contracts, worth $6.8 billion combined, to build spacecraft designed to fly NASA astronauts there — and restore human spaceflight from U.S. soil.

“We’re moving into a new era,” Bridenstine said at a news conference before the launch. “We are going to launch American astronauts, on American rockets, from American soil for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttles.” The first flight with astronauts on board, he said would take place “in the first part of next year.”

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