Still Sittin' Around, Waitin' For the Big Story

I'm sure that everybody following the Starliner launch knows that when they came out of a programmed countdown hold at T minus 4:00 minutes, the system went into an automatic hold within 10 seconds. The time remaining of 3:50 remaining frozen on the clock.

Screen capture from NASA Spaceflight's coverage. Notice in the lower left part of the control bar that the video's timer is 4:00:40 into their coverage if you want to watch it.

NASA provided a terse little summary late in the day today, saying that they're not sure that the hold and scrub for the day was really necessary, but they'll know more by tomorrow morning. 

NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) are forgoing a Crew Flight Test launch attempt Sunday, June 2, to give the team additional time to assess a ground support equipment issue at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex-41 in Florida.

Saturday’s launch was to carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the International Space Station scrubbed due to an observation of a ground launch sequencer. The system was unsuccessful in verifying the sequencer’s necessary redundancy.

ULA will assess the ground support equipment overnight, and NASA will provide an update June 2 on next steps for the flight. The next available launch opportunities are Wednesday, June 5, and Thursday, June 6.

Space.com adds a little needed context here that NASA's statement doesn't address. 

ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters in the post-scrub briefing that engineers suspect the abort may have been caused by a faulty computer card in ground launch sequencer system housed in a building at the base of at Starliner's launch pad, Space Launch Complex 41, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. But checking that card would require ground teams to wait several hours until it was safe to approach the pad. "The system was unsuccessful in verifying the sequencer's necessary redundancy," NASA officials said of the sequencer glitch.

"We can't get in there until we're done defueling a rocket, which is followed by making sure there's no stray hydrogen inside that building, so that it's safe for people to be there. Then we'll go in and troubleshoot it, Bruno said. "And if it's as simple as replacing a card, we have spares for everything, and we would do that. We would test it, which is required, and then be in a position for a recycle tomorrow."

That interview was before NASA's announcement saying they're forgoing an attempt tomorrow. 

While I was interested in the Space Shuttle program before the first flight, I don't remember much about things like this that happened while building up to the STS-1 mission, launched on April 12, 1981. I didn't live near the KSC until just over a year later. That first flight was originally scheduled for March of 1979 as a suborbital flight, which got turned into a thorough test on orbit for a couple of days. You have to go that far back to find a man-rated spacecraft being tested with a crew for the first time to compare this to. Well, you have to go back to 1981 to find a man-rated spacecraft that isn't named Dragon. The Orion capsule on Artemis has only flown unmanned missions since its first flight in December of 2014.

Something I swear I remember hearing about STS-1 is a quip from one of the crew members, either John Young or Bob Crippen, something like if the delays kept up instead of being Young and Crippen, they'd be old and crippled. I can't find any evidence of that being real. Anybody else remember that?