Joey Roulette
(Reuters) – Boeing’s (NYSE:) Starliner capsule will face a crucial test on Thursday when it is expected to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) on the craft’s first flight into orbit carrying astronauts, as the aerospace giant looks to hone its skills competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The CST-100 Starliner, with astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams on board, launched from Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida on Wednesday and is tethered to an Atlas (NYSE:)V rocket provided and launched by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA).
A reusable candy-shaped capsule and its crew rendezvous with the ISS. At 12:15 pm ET (16:15 GMT), it is scheduled to autonomously dock with the ISS, which orbits about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. It is scheduled to remain docked for about eight days and then return two astronauts safely to Earth, among other mission goals.
Its launch Wednesday followed years of technical problems, various delays and a successful test mission to the orbiting laboratory in 2022 without astronauts on board.
Boeing intends for the NASA-funded Starliner to compete with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, which has been the US space agency’s only vehicle since 2020 to send ISS crew members into orbit from US soil. The mission is a test flight needed before NASA can certify Starliner for regular astronaut missions.
The seven-passenger Starliner’s inaugural crew includes two veteran NASA astronauts: Wilmore, 61, a retired U.S. Navy captain and fighter pilot, and Williams, 58, a former Navy helicopter test pilot with experience flying more than 30 different aircraft.
Getting Starliner to this point has been a difficult process for Boeing under its $4.2 billion fixed-price contract with NASA, which wants to duplicate two different U.S. flights to the ISS. Starliner is several years behind schedule and more than $1.5 billion over budget. Meanwhile, Boeing’s commercial aircraft business has been hit by the 737 MAX crisis.