Written by Joey Rowlett and Steve Gorman
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – Boeing Co.'s (NYSE:) new Starliner astronaut capsule is scheduled to launch on Saturday in its long-delayed first crewed test flight, a milestone in the beleaguered aviation giant's goal to compete with Elon Musk's SpaceX in outer space. Astronaut launch work.
The CST-100 Starliner vehicle with two astronauts aboard is scheduled to lift off at 12:25 p.m. ET (1625 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, strapped to an Atlas (NYSE:) V rocket from the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture. United Launch. Alliance (ULA).
The countdown was halted on May 6 just two hours before launch due to a faulty pressure valve on the Atlas rocket. A helium leak and another problem was later discovered in the Starliner's propulsion system. All problems have been resolved, according to Boeing and NASA.
“This is a test flight, and we know we're going to learn some things,” Mark Nappi, Boeing's vice chief of commercial crew, said during a news conference on Friday.
The gumdrop-shaped capsule and its crew are heading to the International Space Station (ISS), two years after the Starliner completed its first test flight to the orbiting laboratory without astronauts on board.
Boeing, whose commercial aircraft operations have been reeling from a series of crises including its 737 MAX jets, needs a win in space for its Starliner project, which is already several years behind schedule and more than $1.5 billion over budget.
The company is a longtime NASA contractor that has built modules for the decades-old International Space Station and rockets designed to ferry astronauts toward the moon. But it has never built its own operational spacecraft, a feat complicated by years of software problems, technical glitches, and administrative changes in the Starliner program.
While Boeing struggles, SpaceX has become a reliable in-orbit taxi for the US space agency, which supports a new generation of specially built spacecraft to carry astronauts to low Earth orbit and, under the ambitious Artemis program, to the moon and eventually… The ultimate Mars.
The Starliner will compete head-to-head with SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, which since 2020 has been NASA's only vehicle to send ISS crew members into orbit from American soil. NASA has long sought two American flights to the station, in addition to joint astronaut flights it conducts using a Russian Soyuz rocket.
The inaugural crew for the seven-seat Starliner includes two veteran NASA astronauts: Barry “Butch” Wilmore, 61, a retired U.S. Navy captain and fighter pilot, and Sunita “Sonny” Williams, 58, a former Navy helicopter test pilot with experience in Aviation. More than 30 different planes.
They have spent a combined 500 days in space over two ISS missions each. Wilmore is the designated commander of Saturday's flight, with Williams in the pilot's seat.
Although Starliner is designed to fly autonomously, the crew can take over control of the spacecraft if necessary. The test flight requires Willmore and Williams to practice manually maneuvering the vehicle on its way to the space station, where it will remain docked for at least eight days before returning to Earth.
If Boeing delays its launch attempt on Saturday, the company has backup launch opportunities on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday. If it can't make it by Thursday, some elements on the Starliner and rocket will need to be replaced or refurbished, which could lead to delays of weeks or perhaps months due to schedule conflicts with other ULA missions and the International Space Station.
Saturday's flight marks the first crewed flight of the Atlas crew into space since previous versions of the famous rocket series sent American astronauts, including John Glenn, into orbit during NASA's Mercury program in the 1960s.
If all goes as planned, the capsule will arrive at the space station after a flight lasting about 26 hours and dock with the orbital research center about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.
Willmore and Williams are expected to remain on the space station for about a week before riding the capsule back to Earth for a parachute and airbag landing in the desert of the southwestern United States, the first time on a NASA crewed mission.