By Andy Pasztor The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has determined that sensors flagged problems with two out of four main engines of a mammoth deep-space rocket during a key ground test that ended prematurely over the weekend. But a spokeswoman for NASA on Tuesday said preliminary findings indicated the cause of the difficulties likely stemmed from how the test was set up for the Space Launch System booster designed by Boeing Co., rather than malfunctions or defects with the engines themselves. Responding to questions about the cause of Saturday s premature engine shutdowns which occurred about a minute into what was supposed to be an eight-minute test agency spokeswoman Kathryn Hambleton said all of the engines performed as expected before the abrupt automated shutoff.
By Andy Pasztor and Andrew Tangel NASA and Boeing Co. suffered a potentially major setback in their deep-space ambitions when the engines for a giant new rocket shut down prematurely Saturday during a key test on the ground. The engines were supposed to produce power for eight minutes but shut down after about 60 seconds while fastened to a stand at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Program officials had said four minutes would be the minimum time to gain confidence in the reliability of the engines, fuel system and surrounding structures. National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said they couldn t immediately determine the cause of the premature shutdown, and therefore it was too early to determine what fixes would be necessary or even if the test needed to be repeated. They said engineers didn t know whether it was a hardware, software or sensor malfunction.
By Jon Emont, Andrew Tangel and Doug Cameron A Boeing Co. passenger plane carrying 62 people crashed into the Java Sea on Saturday, Indonesian authorities said. The Sriwijaya Air jet lost contact with air-traffic controllers and disappeared from radar minutes after taking off from the country s capital, Jakarta, transport ministry officials said. It was on a 90-minute flight from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province on Indonesia s Borneo island, and went missing at 2:40 p.m. local time, a spokeswoman for the ministry, Adita Irawati, said. The aircraft involved was a 26-year-old Boeing 737-500, according to Theodora Erika, a spokeswoman for Sriwijaya Air, which is an Indonesian carrier. Sriwijaya flight SJ182 departed at 2:36 p.m. local time, climbing to a maximum altitude of 10,900 feet about four minutes later and then beginning a steep descent, according to aviation data provider Flightradar24. The last data signal from the aircraft was
By Andrew Tangel and Andy Pasztor Boeing Co. s $2.5 billion agreement to end a criminal investigation by the Justice Department into the 737 MAX debacle resolves one of its highest-profile. | January 24, 2021