Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft is in the wrong orbit during first trip to space

An artistic rendering of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner | Image: Boeing

The first flight of Boeing’s new passenger spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, suffered a major setback this morning, after the vehicle failed to reach the right orbit when it launched to space. No people were on board the test flight. However, the failure calls into question the Starliner’s future and how long it will take for the team to recover from the mishap.
For now, Starliner is at least in space, and circulating Earth. It’s just not at the altitude it was supposed to reach in order to meet up with the International Space Station — the spacecraft’s planned destination. The source of the problem was a glitch in the Starliner’s internal clock, which caused the vehicle to register a different time than it actually was. That threw off…

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