Tennessee astronaut Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore’s space launch delayed

NASA has postponed the launch of a Boeing spacecraft expected to carry Tennessee astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore to the International Space Station. A problem with the United Launch Alliance rocket caused the delay.

Boeing, NASA and ULA haven’t yet announced a new date for the launch.

This mission is historic. Wilmore and his fellow NASA astronaut Sunita Williams will be the first people to fly aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

It will also mark the third time Wilmore has flown to orbit, clocking 178 days in space. He’s originally from Mt. Juliet and graduated from Tennessee Tech.

Read WPLN’s coverage of Wilmore’s previous space missions:

• We dare you to take cooler pictures than this Tennessee astronaut
• Countdown over: Mt. Juliet’s Barry Wilmore launches space mission
• Tennessee astronaut (and dad) gets ready to launch into space

Wilmore has been training for this launch for years as Boeing and NASA worked out the kinks of the brand new space system. Test flight issues, technical problems and other setbacks have delayed the launch for a number of years.

“Test after test, evaluation after evaluation — every single day is different,” Wilmore said ahead of launch. “And that’s been intriguing and thrilling along the way.”

NASA holds contracts with Boeing and SpaceX to launch its astronauts to the space station. These partnerships were inked in order to end the space agency’s reliance on Russia to get people to and from the station.

If the mission launches as expected, the Starliner should dock with the space station in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

Update: This story was updated Monday to reflect that Wilmore’s launch has been delayed.