CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — After years of delays and stumbles, Boeing is finally ready to launch astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.
This is the first flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule with a crew on board, two NASA pilots who will check out the spacecraft during the test drive and a week-long stay at the space station.
NASA turned to U.S. companies for astronaut travel after the space shuttles were retired. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has completed nine taxi trips for NASA since 2020, while Boeing has managed just two unoccupied test flights.
Boeing program manager Mark Nappi wants Starliner to be more advanced. “There’s no doubt about it, but here we are now.”
The company’s long-awaited astronaut demonstration is scheduled to take off Monday evening.
If this test goes well, NASA will alternate between Boeing and SpaceX to bring astronauts to and from the space station.
A preview of the new ride and its shakedown cruise:
THE CAPSULE
White with black and blue trim, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is approximately 3 meters high and 4.5 meters in diameter. It can accommodate up to seven people, although NASA crews usually number four. The company chose the name Starliner almost a decade ago, a variation of the name of Boeing’s first Stratoliner and the current Dreamliner.
No one was on board the two previous test flights of Boeing’s Starliner. The first, in 2019, faced software issues so severe that its empty capsule was unable to reach the station before second trial in 2022. Then last summer, weak parachutes and flammable ribbons appeared that had to be repaired or removed.
THE CREW
Veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are retired naval captains who spent months aboard the space station years ago. They rejoined the test flight after the original crew pulled out as delays mounted. Wilmore, 61, is a former combat pilot from Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and Williams, 58, is a helicopter pilot from Needham, Massachusetts. The duo have been involved in the development of the capsule and insist Starliner is ready for prime time, otherwise they wouldn’t be committed to the launch.
“We’re not burying our heads in the sand,” Williams told the Associated Press. “Of course, Boeing had its problems. But we are QA (quality assurance). Our eyes are glued to the spaceship.
THE TEST FLIGHT
Starliner will take off aboard United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral space station. This will be the first time astronauts have boarded an Atlas since NASA’s Project Mercury, starting with John Glenn when he became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962. Sixty-two years later , this will be the 100th launch of the Atlas V, which is used to hoist satellites as well as spacecraft.
“We are very careful during each mission. We’re super, duper, duper careful” with human missions, said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Starliner is expected to reach the space station in…
