Starliner Set to Transport Crew to Space Station
9:30 p.m. UPDATE FROM NASA: “NASA, Boeing, and United Launch Alliance scrubbed the launch opportunity on Monday, May 6 for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station due a faulty oxygen relief valve observation on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket Centaur second stage.”
Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner spacecraft, developed in collaboration with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, will lift off tonight at 10:34 p.m. ET. Live coverage of the event at 6:30 p.m. is available on the Boeing Launch Web Stream.
According to a NASA press release, “NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are assigned to fly Starliner and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to the International Space Station. The duo will remain docked at the orbiting laboratory for about two weeks to evaluate the new spacecraft and its systems before returning to Earth in the Western United States.”
Quick Facts
- The Starliner is a reusable spacecraft that combines a proven capsule architecture, materials and subsystem technologies with 21st century innovations.
- The Starliner’s economic impact can be seen across the United States, with more than 425 suppliers in 37 states.
- The pusher abort system provides safe crew escape throughout the launch and ascent phase of the mission.
- Wireless internet will assist with crew communication, entertainment and docking with the International Space Station.
- An innovative weldless design eliminates the structural risks of traditional welds, and it also reduces mass and production time.
- Boeing-developed training devices provide Starliner crews extensive training on the most technologically advanced, proven and integrated systems, ensuring astronauts learn how to handle any situation that could arise in the harsh environment of space, even with a spacecraft that is designed to be autonomous.
- In addition to both an uncrewed and a crewed flight test, NASA has ordered six Boeing crew rotation missions to the International Space Station aboard the Starliner, which will be Boeing’s first commercial human spaceflight missions.
- Starliner’s crew access tower is the first new access tower to be built along Florida’s Space Coast since the Apollo era. The crew access arm and white room, which are about 169 feet (51.5 meters) above the launch pad surface of Space Launch Complex 41, are where crews will begin boarding the Starliner before launch.
- Space Launch Complex 41 has been used only for non-crew spacecraft to this point, hosting Titan rockets beginning in 1965 and then the Atlas V since 2002. Notable NASA missions launched from the Starliner launch pad include the Viking robots that landed on Mars, the Voyager spacecraft that toured the outer planets, the New Horizons probe that flew past Pluto, and the Curiosity rover currently traversing Mars.