Everything is ready for the first manned flight of the Starliner spacecraft
MADRID, May 6. (EUROPE PRESS) –
Several years late As for NASA’s plans, Boeing is finishing sending astronauts to the International Space Station on its Atarliner space capsule.
The ULA Atlas V rocket, carrying a capsule with two NASA astronauts on board, is expected to launch at 02:34 UTC on Tuesday, May 7, from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Weather conditions are 95 percent favorable, NASA reports this.
#Starliner And #AtlasV have reached @ulalaunchLaunch pad of space launch complex-41.
The teams moved the 172-foot (52 m) stack at a speed of about 1 mph (1.6 km/h). The rollover to the pad is an important milestone ahead of the launch of crew flight tests on May 6th. @NASA_Astronauts Butch Wilmore and @Astro_Suni! pic.twitter.com/TyeghQty9c
— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) May 4, 2024
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will fly to the space station to dock at the forward port of the Harmony module. They will spend about a week on the space station before returning to Earth.
Starliner is the result of a contract NASA signed with Boeing and Space X to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Although Space X’s Crew Dragon has regularly carried astronauts to the orbital complex since May 2020, Boeing’s Starliner was delayed for several years.
This capsule to date only released twice, on unmanned test flights to the orbital laboratory. Starliner encountered a number of problems during its first mission, which launched in December 2019, and was unable to reach the orbital complex as planned. But he achieved it on the second try, in May 2022.
Externally, the Starliner reusable capsule is similar to the Orion spacecraft. Its diameter is 4.56 meters. It is designed to transport up to seven people, stay in orbit for up to seven months and be reused on ten missions.