UNITED STATES: Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is scheduled to fly in early February 2023 for NASA’s Crew Trip Test (CFT) to the International Space Station (ISS), the company’s first flight carrying people.
As part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, NASA and Boeing teams are getting everything ready for the launch, including the hardware, crew, and mission support teams.
Recently, the teams practised the prelaunch timetable and responses to several launch event scenarios through an integrated crew exercise. The astronauts will gear up and board their crew module in the following weeks to inspect the systems and interfaces that support their health and safety.
Boeing’s Starliner will lift off from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for the crewed voyage. CFT will show that the rocket and spacecraft are capable of transporting astronauts to and from the space station in a secure manner.
Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams, two astronaut test pilots, will be transported by NASA’s rocket to the space station, where they will spend around two weeks living and working in orbit.
The agency will begin the last phase of certifying the Starliner spacecraft and systems for crew trips to the space station after a successful CFT mission.
“The Starliner team has done a fantastic job of incorporating all the knowledge from our uncrewed orbital test flight throughout the restoration process. To prepare Starliner for certification and upcoming operational missions, we anticipate learning even more on our upcoming flight with astronauts,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, noted.
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