Boeing Space Flight Postponed After Mishap at Space Station

“We want to ensure that the space station is in a stable configuration, and ready for Starliner to arrive,” said Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s commercial crew program, which is overseeing the Starliner effort. The Boeing capsule could be launched on Aug. 3, he said.

Boeing said the company is ready for the Starliner launch “when the time is right.”

Officials decided to put off launching the Boeing vehicle after a flight-control team noticed at 12:45 p.m. ET on Thursday that the Russian spacecraft, called the Nauka, had inadvertently fired its thrusters while it was docked to the space station, causing the space station to veer out of its expected orientation in space.

The Nauka vessel, which was uncrewed, had connected with the space station Thursday morning. The 43-foot-long, 23-ton module is meant to serve in part as a new science facility and docking port, according to a NASA website.

Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

For roughly an hour on Thursday, staffers supporting the Nauka’s docking at the space station worked to return the facility to a normal orientation in space, NASA executives said at a briefing after the Starliner flight was postponed.

Communications between the facility and NASA failed at one point for four minutes and again for seven minutes, according to Joel Montalbano, the agency’s manager for the space station program. He said teams were able to reorient it by firing countervailing thrusters, he said.

Crew members on the station didn’t face any immediate danger during the operation, Mr. Montalbano said.

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Write to Micah Maidenberg at [email protected]