The first manned spaceflight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, scheduled for Saturday, has been postponed again, the space agency NASA said, without giving a new launch date.
“When a next launch is possible is still being discussed,” NASA said in a statement sent to journalists on Tuesday evening. The launch of the mission to the International Space Station is crucial for Boeing and has been anticipated for years. It has already been postponed several times.
The new problem is a “small helium leak” discovered on the spacecraft, NASA announced last week. The space agency ordered the spaceship from Boeing ten years ago to transport astronauts to the ISS.
SpaceX has been bringing astronauts to the ISS since 2020, but NASA wants a second spaceship to better manage any emergencies on the space station or problems with one of the space capsules.