The developer of the manned spacecraft CST-100 Cockpit Boeing has postponed its first test launch to the International space station (ISS) for three months. According to news Agency Reuters, referring to sources close to the project, at the same time shifted and manned test flight of the spacecraft with the crew.
According to earlier information, it was reported that originally scheduled for the month of March, the first test flight was postponed to the end of April. By this time the first flight of the ship with the crew at the time, was left unchanged — it was scheduled for August 27, 2019.
Now it became known that the first flight of CST-100 Cockpit unmanned, on 17 August. The same information is reported by the Russian news Agency RIA Novosti referring to a source in the Russian space industry with which the news of the postponement of the launch of shared American colleagues.
“The American side informed the Russian that the launch of an unmanned spacecraft Cockpit postponed to August 17 due to problems that occurred during ground tests of the ship”, — quotes words of the source news Agency.
The source also added that as a result of the postponement of the first test flight of the unmanned now also moved from August to a later date of start of the vehicle Cockpit to the ISS in manned mode.
Earlier also it became known who was to fly to the ISS in August. Aboard the CST-100 Cockpit will be a crew of NASA astronauts Michael Fincke and Nicole Aunapu Mann, and also the astronaut of the Boeing company Christopher Ferguson.
With the closing of the space Shuttle program the US has not been able to deliver their astronauts to the ISS and bring them back. To do this, America used the services of Roscosmos and the Russian ships “Union”. New ships for manned flights under contracts with NASA, has developed a private American company SpaceX and Boeing. The first test launch of new spacecraft Crew Dragon from SpaceX to the ISS on 2 March. The flight was unmanned. When you are docked automatically with the ISS a day later, the machine was in orbit for 6 days, after which the March 8 returned to Earth, descending on parachutes and provodnitsas in the Atlantic ocean. According to current plans, in July to be held the second test launch Crew Dragon, but with a crew on Board. The first to go to the ISS on a private spacecraft will be astronauts-veterans of NASA, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. After that, NASA needs to make a decision on the certification of Crew Dragon for regular flights.
For insurance in case of unavailability of spacecraft SpaceX and Boeing, space Agency NASA declared the desire to get some more seats on the Russian Soyuz in the period from 2019 to 2020-th years. A few days earlier the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin on his page on “Twitter” confirmed the readiness of Rocksome to help American partners on this issue.
We are willing to insure American partners in case of delay in the progress of testing their new manned spacecraft. I agree with the suggestion @NASA in the future to use us (after their qualification), and Russian ships for the delivery of mixed international crews to the ISS. https://t.co/D3i28DKmSh
— Dmitry Rogozin (@Rogozin) March 18, 2019.
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