The mission, known as Crew Flight Test, will launch tomorrow. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station prepare to welcome Boeing’s first crewed space flight.
After years of delays and setbacks, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is finally on the verge of achieving a major milestone: its first crewed flight. The mission, known as Crew Flight Test, will launch tomorrow.
The CST-100 Starliner is the commercial spacecraft that Boeing plans to use to transport astronauts to space.
So far, the device has completed two uncrewed flights, one in 2019, with which it did not reach the International Space Station as planned, due to software and engineering problems, and another in 2022, where it did meet its objectives.
If successful, the ship will join SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft for routine space travel under the space agency’s commercial crew program.
American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will travel aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule, who will spend about ten days on the space station.
SpaceX Crew Dragon astronauts Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, Matthew Dominick and Alexander Grebenkin will oversee the arrival of the new rocket commissioned by NASA.
“The arrival of a completely new vehicle, the first manned flight of a new generation spacecraft, is something really important. Nothing is left to chance,” said Barratt. And he expanded: “Basically, they are the same procedures and precautions that we would take with any vehicle, except that the excitement increases a little because it is a completely new vehicle.”
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.
“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.
