(MENAFN- AzerNews) The new Starliner spacecraft is "go" for its first-everastronaut launch on Monday (May 6), Boeing and NASA officialsannounced today (May 3), Azernews reports, citingSpace.
Barring bad weather or any last-minute technical issues,Starliner was cleared to send two veteran NASA astronauts andformer U.S. Navy test pilots to the International Space Station(ISS). On board this mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), willbe commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams.
The duo are completing last-minute training items andquarantining here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center ahead of theirhistoric liftoff, which is scheduled for Mondauy at 10:34 p.m. EDT(0234 GMT on Tuesday, May 7) from Space Launch Complex 41 at CapeCanaveral Space Force Station. Coverage will run live here onSpace, via NASA Television.
"We had the launch readiness review, and everyone polled 'go' toproceed," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program,said during a press conference today.
CFT will not only be the first time that Boeing's Starlinercarries astronauts, but also the first time that United LaunchAlliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket takes on that task. Rollout of thestacked rocket will take place tomorrow (May 4).
Pending the success of CFT, Boeing will join SpaceX in sendingoperational, six-month-long crewed missions to the ISS. Bothcompanies received commercial crew contracts from NASA in 2014,with Boeing's valued at $4.2 billion back then, compared toSpaceX's $2.6 billion.
SpaceX has since launched 12 crewed missions to the ISS,including a test flight in 2020, while Starliner's first crewedeffort has been delayed by several issues. The Boeing vehicle'sfirst uncrewed flight to the ISS, which launched in December 2019,failed to reach its destination due to technical glitches. Thepandemic, and the need to address the issues that arose on thatfirst flight, delayed Starliner's second uncrewed test flight untilMay 2022. That effort was successful, reaching the ISS and meetingall of its other major objectives.
CFT was then slated to launch in 2023 - until more criticalissues were uncovered, such as problems with the capsule's mainparachutes and flammable tape on the capsule's wiring. These issuesare behind the team, everyone has emphasized, and CFT is ready togo. If this first astronaut flight goes well, the debut operationalcrewed mission of Starliner should follow in 2025.
NASA and Boeing teams conducted a flight readiness review forCFT last week. That analysis identified two issues that requiredmore attention: a valve needed to be replaced at the launch pad,and engineers wanted to further study contingency scenarios for thejettisoning of Starliner's forward heat shield during reentry toEarth's atmosphere.
That work has now been completed to the teams' satisfaction,Stich said today.
Starliner-1, the capsule's first operational mission, is slatedto send three astronauts to the ISS: NASA's Mike Fincke (who isalso serving as a CFT backup astronaut), alongside NASA's ScottTingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk.
But that is pending the success of CFT, which will see Williamsand Wilmore take manual control of the spacecraft numerous times,test emergency procedures for power-up and communications, andotherwise put the Starliner spacecraft through its paces for futuremissions.
The vision from NASA is for SpaceX's Dragon, Starliner andRussia's Soyuz spacecraft to continue sending astronaut crews tothe ISS for the next several years. A selection of NASA astronautscontinue to use Soyuz for policy and backup reasons, and Russia hascommitted to sending crews aloft until at least 2028.
While Starliner is not manifested for private missions yet,Boeing will fulfill something like six or seven missions for NASAduring the nominal lifetime of ISS to 2030. A handful of privatespace stations are in the works, so there may still be destinationsfor Starliner, Dragon and Soyuz after the ISS retires.
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