The first Starliner crew is ready to fly on May 6, the team told reporters upon arriving at the launch site.
The two NASA astronauts to fly aboard Boeing Starliner, commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) near Orlando, Florida today (April 25) for their historic launch.
This International Space Station (ISS) mission, known as Crew Flight Test, has been delayed about four years due to various issues with Starliner, which Wilmore and Williams have continually stressed are long resolved.
But new things to tackle will surely come up during their approximately one-week test mission, Wilmore told reporters.
Boeing, alongside SpaceX, was tasked by NASA in 2014 to send commercial crew missions to the ISS.
But while SpaceX has sent 11 crews to the ISS aboard Crew Dragon, Starliner was delayed by four years amid numerous technical problems.
After implementing dozens of fixes, Starliner’s second ISS flight (also without astronauts) made it there and back in 2022.
If successful, Boeing will then join SpaceX and Russia, which flies some NASA astronauts to the ISS for technical and policy reasons, in delivering regular space station crews for normal half-year rotations.
When the team arrived at the launch site on May 6, they informed reporters that the first Starliner crew was prepared to take off. This will be the first mission the spacecraft has been on with people on board.
For their historic launch today, April 25, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), close to Orlando, Florida, welcomed the two astronauts who will fly aboard Boeing Starliner: pilot Suni Williams and commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore. Not only were the astronauts the first people to fly on Starliner, but they were also former U. S. Additionally, the first passengers on the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket will be test pilots from the Navy.
Crew Flight Test, an ISS mission, has been delayed for approximately four years because of Starliner problems, which Wilmore and Williams have consistently emphasized are long-term fixes. On their roughly one-week test mission, Wilmore assured reporters, there will undoubtedly be new challenges to overcome.
Since this is the first human flight [with] the spacecraft, do we expect everything to go perfectly? Just minutes after Wilmore and Williams landed on the tarmac in a two-seater T-38 jet used for training, Wilmore stated in remarks that were broadcast live on NASA TV, “I’m sure we’ll find things out.”. “We take this action because of that. It’s a test flight today. You therefore anticipate finding things when you test. We anticipate discovering items. “.”.
Related: I piloted four separate simulators for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. This is what I discovered (pictures, video).
Williams noted that in preparing procedures for the first astronaut flight and testing those procedures in simulators, trainers from NASA and Boeing had taken into account “lessons learned” from two prior uncrewed flight tests with Starliner.
“We survived the incident where the kitchen sink was practically thrown at us on a sim,” Williams remarked. I therefore have complete faith in our mission control team’s readiness for the task, as well as our own capabilities and those of the spacecraft. They’re willing to do it. “.
NASA gave Boeing and SpaceX the mission in 2014 to launch commercial crew missions to the International Space Station. (NASA used to use the space shuttle to transport the majority of its astronauts there; however, between the shuttle’s retirement in 2011 and SpaceX’s first crewed mission in 2020, the agency temporarily switched to using Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. ).
SpaceX has a $2.6 billion commercial crew contract, while Boeing has a $4.2 billion contract for Starliner. Nevertheless, Starliner was delayed by four years due to multiple technical issues, whereas SpaceX has successfully sent eleven crews aboard Crew Dragon to the ISS.
The 2019 Starliner unmanned flight to the International Space Station was unsuccessful in reaching its goal. Starliner’s second (again, without astronauts) trip to the International Space Station (ISS) was successful in 2022 after numerous fixes were made. However, more problems with the spacecraft were discovered, including wiring that was mostly covered in flammable P213 tape and main parachutes that carried less load than engineers had originally estimated. As a result, the first crewed spaceflight for Starliner was delayed until 2023.
Relative: NASA’s first Boeing Starliner crew members are prepared to take off for the International Space Station.
Approximately one week after their last visit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center on April 16 to witness Starliner travel six miles (10 kilometers) between buildings in order to be integrated with the Atlas V, the crew of Starliner entered quarantine on Tuesday, April 23. Before the stacked rocket rolls out to KSC Launch Pad 41, engineers are testing communications between the rocket and spacecraft.
Officials from Boeing and NASA are conducting a flight readiness review this week, and a press conference is scheduled for later today at 4:30 p.m. M. live on Space.com at 2:30 PM EDT (2030 GMT). According to a previous post on X (formerly Twitter), officials from NASA’s commercial crew program gave CFT the all-clear to launch on April 18, after a flight test readiness review.
In the event that CFT’s flight proceeds as planned, the first operational mission, Starliner-1, is scheduled to launch for a six-month duration no later than early 2025. Scott Tingle of NASA, Mike Fincke of NASA, and Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency will all be traveling on Starliner-1. If all goes according to plan, Boeing will eventually supply regular space station crews for regular half-year rotations alongside SpaceX and Russia, which already transports some NASA astronauts to the ISS for technical and policy reasons.
At four p.m., this story was updated. m. EDT with the updated flight readiness review conference time.
