NASA has revealed “Roskosmos” the cause of problems with the spacecraft Starliner. It is reported by RIA Novosti with reference to the source in the rocket and space industry.
According to the agency’s interlocutor, the reason for the transfer of STARLINER launch has become problems in the valves of several small thrust engines. It is noted that the Boeing engineers are currently engaged in their elimination, but NASA has no preliminary time when the ship will be ready to return to the starting table.
The source in the rocket and space industry also said that Russian experts asked NASA to keep them in the know, as problems with small thrust engines, which are used to maneuvering at the International Space Station (ISS), can be potentially dangerous for the ISS.
Earlier it was reported that the heavy ATLAS 5 rocket with the Starliner spacecraft without a crew on August 3 did not start with a cosmodrome on Cape Canaveral in Florida (USA) due to the detected technical malfunction.
Commenting on this situation, the head of the press service of Roskosmos, Vladimir Ustimno, called the ugly earlier attempt to connect the launch of Starliner with the Russian multifunctional laboratory module (MLM) “Science”. “But that’s what it does not understand, so it’s attempts to NASA and Boeing in the presence of serious problems to accuse the Russian module” Science “in the exit. Despite the fact that there was bad weather on the cosmodrome, and the ship and rocket returned back to the vertical assembly shop, which would be Didn’t do if the transfer really happened because of the “science”. Unscrax it, “wrote Ustimenko in Telegram.
On August 4, Starliner had to dock to the ISS, and on August 9 – to minimize and fall after four hours to land at the White Sands Polygon (New Mexico).
In July, RIA Novosti, with reference to the US space agency, reported that NASA decided to transfer the Starliner test launch to the ISS due to the situation with “science”. In “Roskosmos” refused to consider the reason for the transfer of the launch of this spacecraft incident with MLM.