Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Boeing / Boeing
NASA and Boeing are making the ultimate preparations for the long-awaited and much-delayed maiden crewed flight of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.
A message posted on NASA’s web site on Monday stated the launch group is concentrating on “no sooner than Monday, Might 6” for liftoff atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from the Kennedy Area Heart in Florida.
Flying on board the Starliner will likely be NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. The pair will head to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) and spend about 10 days there, dwelling and dealing alongside the orbital outpost’s different crewmembers.
Whereas the Starliner mission has confronted many technical points and subsequent delays since 2019, the latest goal date for launch has been decided to a big extent by ISS operations, with the time round now notably busy for spacecraft comings and goings. Forward of Starliner’s launch, for instance, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 crewmembers will board the Dragon spacecraft and relocate it to a different ISS port to make means for the incoming Starliner.
Boeing, which constructed the Starliner, can also be performing prelaunch closeout work and finishing last certification for flight.
The primary crewed flight check of Starliner will assist NASA confirm whether or not the spacecraft system is able to fly common crew rotation missions to the area station. So far, the Starliner has been on an uncrewed check flight that failed to achieve the ISS and one other that managed to dock with the ISS earlier than returning dwelling safely.
The Starliner mission is a part of NASA’s Business Crew Program, and the intention is for the spacecraft to offer NASA with one other human transportation system alongside SpaceX’s spaceflight system, which has been utilizing the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS since 2020.
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