By Denise Chow — NBCNews
After years of delays, Boeing will finally launch two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on its Starliner spacecraft.
The capsule is scheduled to lift off Monday at 10:34 p.m. ET aboard an Atlas V rocket at the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida. Astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita Williams will pilot the Starliner on its inaugural crewed flight, a final and crucial test before NASA can authorize Boeing to conduct routine flights to and from the space station for the agency.
There is a lot at stake. This will be Boeing’s first launch with humans aboard its spacecraft, and comes after years of delays, technical setbacks and significant budget overruns. If successful, the flight will allow Boeing to challenge the dominance of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has transported NASA astronauts to and from the orbital outpost since 2020.
Both companies’ spacecraft were developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, created after the retirement of its space shuttle fleet in 2011. The goal: to incentivize and help finance the creation of new commercially built vehicles capable of fly to and from low Earth orbit.
In a briefing last week before the flight, Wilmore said safety is paramount and that previous Starliner launch attempts – both uncrewed and with crews – were delayed because the capsule simply wasn’t ready until now.
“Why do we think it’s as safe as possible? We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t like that,” Wilmore told reporters.
However, any new spacecraft or rocket comes with risks.
“Do we expect it to work perfectly? “This is the first human flight of the spacecraft,” Wilmore added. “I’m sure we’ll discover things. That’s why we do it. “It’s a test flight.”
The plan is for the astronauts to dock at the space station the next day and spend about a week there before returning to Earth and landing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Although NASA astronauts have been flying aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft for years, the agency does not want to depend on a single company, said Makena Young, a member of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. “Having that second option is really important,” he added.
[La NASA identifica como basura espacial al objeto que cayó sobre el tejado de una casa en Florida]
“It adds redundancy and resilience,” Young added. “In space systems, there are always redundancies, because if something goes wrong, you want to make sure you have backups.”
Boeing’s journey to this first manned flight has been turbulent. In 2019, the Starliner’s uncrewed debut was cut short after software glitches prevented the capsule from attempting to dock with the space station. Subsequent problems with the fuel valve caused several delays before Boeing was able to successfully demonstrate in 2022 that the Starliner could dock with the International Space Station and return to Earth.
A historic flight amid criticism
Earlier this year, Boeing’s aviation arm came under fire after a panel exploded mid-flight on one of its 737 Max 9 planes. That serious mishap increased scrutiny of the airline industry and the entire company and probably raised the stakes for the Starliner’s next flight, Young said.
“Having a successful launch will be an incredibly important reminder of the capabilities [de Boeing]”, said. “They will be able to demonstrate that they are a reliable operator capable of completing difficult missions and continuing to innovate.”
Young insisted that the challenges Boeing has faced in getting the Starliner to this point demonstrate how difficult human spaceflight can be.
“I think we forget because we’ve been doing it for decades, but space is still a very difficult environment,” he said. “It’s actually very difficult to get off the ground successfully.”
Williams said she and Wilmore are confident in the Starliner program and the mission ahead.
“We feel very safe and very comfortable when this spacecraft flies,” Williams told reporters earlier this week. “This is where we need to be.”
