CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – Boeing launched astronauts for the first time on Wednesday, belatedly joining SpaceX as a second taxi service for NASA.
A pair of NASA test pilots took off aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule toward the International Space Station, the first to fly the new spacecraft.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’ trip was expected to last 25 hours, arriving Thursday. They will spend just over a week in the orbital laboratory before boarding the Starliner again to land in a remote desert in the western United States on June 14.
Years late due to spacecraft failures, the Starliner crew’s debut comes as the company grapples with unrelated safety issues on its air side.
Wilmore and Williams – retired Navy captains and former residents of the space station – repeatedly stressed before the launch that they had every confidence in Boeing’s ability to get this test flight right.
Boeing’s capsule was launched into orbit in 2019 without a crew, but that test flight was interrupted by software problems. Boeing had better luck on the repeat mission in 2022 although problems with the parachute and other things were later discovered, further delaying the debut of the Starliner crew.
Wednesday’s launch was the third attempt with astronauts since early May, following a pair of rocket-related problems, the latest last weekend.
Minutes before Saturday’s scheduled liftoff, a computer power unit failed on the pad that was to be replaced by rocket maker United Launch Alliance. A faulty valve inside the Atlas V rocket halted the launch attempt in early May.
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