Third time’s the charm — Boeing’s Starliner crewed flight test has finally launched

Jun 05, 2024 10:54 PM - 8 months ago 167133

The 3rd effort astatine a crewed motorboat of nan Boeing Starliner was a success. On Wednesday astatine 10:52AM ET, nan spacecraft lifted disconnected atop nan United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and now has reached a “safe, unchangeable orbit.”

The Starliner will bring NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to nan International Space Station astir 24 hours from now, wherever they’ll “test nan end-to-end capabilities of nan Starliner system, including launch, docking, and return to Earth.” The 2 astronauts will enactment astatine nan ISS for astir a week earlier parachuting down successful nan occidental information of nan US.

This motorboat has been successful nan useful since nan commencement of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in 2014, picking Boeing and SpaceX arsenic its 2 backstage partners to shuttle astronauts to nan ISS and back. Boeing received $4.2 cardinal to create Starliner, but since then, it’s had years of problems, while SpaceX’s Crew Dragon soared ahead.

Starliner’s first uncrewed motorboat successful 2019 ended successful failure, but it yet docked pinch nan ISS successful 2022. Starliner later made its first motorboat effort pinch astronauts connected committee successful May 2024, but NASA scrubbed nan ngo owed to a faulty oxygen alleviation valve connected nan ULA Atlas V rocket’s 2nd stage. The second attempt, connected June 1st, was scrubbed conscionable minutes earlier takeoff because of issues pinch 1 of nan ULA’s crushed computers.

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