The first Starliner launch with astronauts on board has arrived

If all goes according to plan, the Boeing CST-100 Starliner will lift off from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral this morning at 04:34 (Spanish Peninsula Time), carrying two crew members to the space station for the first time. International. Boeing is reaching this point after a long history of delays and problems in designing and testing the Starliner. This comes at a sensitive time for the company, following serious accidents involving some of its aircraft in recent years.

The purpose of the mission to the space station is to test the spacecraft’s readiness for entry into service.

In 2011, after the last space shuttle flight, NASA launched what it called the Commercial Crew Program, a project that tasked a private initiative with restoring North America’s ability to send astronauts into space and away from its dependence on Russia’s Soyuz. The program materialized in 2014, when SpaceX and Boeing were awarded contracts to develop the country’s new spacecraft.

Boeing vs SpaceX

Since then, the trajectory followed by the two corporations has been very different. Although Boeing’s design initially seemed more promising, SpaceX took the lead in 2019 when the Demo-1 mission of its Dragon 2 spacecraft, still without people on board, managed to reach the International Space Station. A year later, on May 31, 2020, Elon Musk’s company achieved historic success by flying two astronauts on Demo-2. To date, SpaceX has already completed eight crewed missions for NASA and four more for private clients.

For its part, Boeing expected Starliner to enter service in 2015, but design problems caused a long chain of delays. Just when it seemed like the odds had been overcome, Boeing had an accident during its first unmanned flight in December 2019, preventing it from reaching the space station. Then another technical failure in August 2021 led to the cancellation of a new launch attempt. Starliner finally managed to dock with the space station in May 2022, but Boeing later delayed without specifying a date the first crewed mission, originally planned for July 2023, due to problems with the parachutes, which are supposed to slow the ship down as it returns to Earth. .

First mission

On this morning’s flight, Starliner will be powered by a ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket and will carry two astronauts (later missions will have four). This is Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, both NASA employees. They are scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station on Wednesday the 8th at 06:48 (Peninsula time) and will remain there for a week.

If all goes well, this mission should be enough to get NASA to approve Starliner and finally get the ship into operational mode. That would allow Boeing to select the six crewed flights its current contract with the space agency provides through 2030, the year the International Space Station is scheduled to retire. In the case of SpaceX, 14 more missions are expected under the auspices of NASA.

A company with problems

Boeing has had serious problems with some of its planes in recent years. In 2018 and 2019, two 737 Max planes crashed, killing 346 people and temporarily halting production of the planes. A new incident in January this year resulted in the loss of a door in flight and once again called into question the corporation’s quality control measures.

Boeing is currently caught up in several regulatory investigations, especially after one of its engineers denounced the reduction of materials used in the production of the 777 and 787 Dreamliner models. If so, this morning’s spaceflight could mean a boost to Boeing’s public image, or it could further deepen the company’s crisis.

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