The Boeing and NASA Starliner spacecraft has received the green light for its first manned space mission, scheduled for the night of this Monday, May 6, from Cape Canaveral, Florida (USA), and bound for the International Space Station. (ISS).
In a teleconference held last Friday, the manager of the Commercial Crew Program of the US space agency, Steve Stich, noted that The final preparatory reviews for the mission were positive and the ship has achieved final authorization for its trip to the International Space Station (ISS).
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft lands at the White Sands Missile Range spaceport, Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in New Mexico.
Photo:NASA / BILL INGALLS
The capsule will take off powered by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from a platform at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:34 p.m. on Monday (02:34 GMT on Tuesday), with the NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board.
“We are going to have a whole new adventure. This is an important part of our space exploration and what I call the ‘golden age of space exploration'”said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The success of the CFT mission (acronym for Crew Flight Test) will mean that NASA will have a second supplier, after SpaceX, for the transportation of manned and cargo missions to the orbital laboratory, under contracts signed with both firms in 2014. .
“We have strived for Commercial Crew (the program) to have two independent space transportation systems. “That has been our goal since its inception and we are very close to achieving that goal with the launch on Monday,” Stich said.
Technicians look next to Boeing’s Starliner crew module at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Photo:BOEING/JOHN PROFERES
If it takes off successfully, the ship will dock at the ISS on Wednesday and its two crew members will remain at the station for about a week before returning to the southwest of the United States, where the Starliner will descend with an improved parachute system. .
Last year, problems detected in the parachute system and in some fiberglass ribbons forced the mission to be postponed when there was a month and a half left before takeoff, which was scheduled for July 21.
Boeing successfully launched the OFT 2 unmanned mission on May 19, 2022, which docked at the ISS the next day, where the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft remained for four days before separating autonomously and then landing in New Mexico (USA). .USA).
The capsule, 5 meters high and 4.6 meters in diameter, is reusable (with a limit of up to 10 uses) and has capacity for a maximum of 7 people, although the manned missions commissioned by NASA within this program They usually have 4 or 5 passengers.
EFE
