Boeing’s troubled space capsule finally made it off the launch pad with two astronauts on board.
The Starliner’s first crewed test flight was delayed by a series of failures, either in the capsule or in the rocket that launched it from pad 41 at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Commander Butch Wilmore and his colleague Suni Williams will dock at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, where they will spend a week before returning to Earth.
Suni is the first female test pilot of an orbital spacecraft.
Three previous launch attempts this year were cancelled, most recently on Saturday when mission control stopped the countdown with just three minutes and 50 seconds remaining.
But Wednesday’s liftoff was textbook, with Starliner soaring into the blue sky on a United Launch Alliance rocket.
The capsule was launched in an unusual shallow climb that gave the crew a better opportunity to abort the flight if necessary until reaching orbit. Other safety modifications were made to the rocket so that the capsule could be quickly separated in an emergency.
The capsule is a fundamental alternative to Space X Crew Dragon and is currently the only shuttle for American, European, Canadian and Japanese astronauts to and from the ISS.
Yeah POT certifies Starliner after this test flight, Boeing is expected to begin operational flights in spring 2025.
NASA commissioned Space X and Boeing to develop a commercial crew capsule in 2014.
But while Space X began transporting astronauts in 2020, Boeing’s spacecraft has been mired in difficulties.
On its first uncrewed mission in 2019, a failure caused the capsule to run out of fuel and docking with the ISS was cancelled.
NASA considered a second flight in 2022 a success, despite problems with the booster, paving the way for a human test flight.
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But planned launches last year were canceled due to overheating batteries, the discovery that protective tape around wiring was flammable and potentially catastrophic problems with the parachute system used for the capsule’s return to Earth.
Boeing’s losses on the Starliner program are believed to be around $1.5bn (£1.2bn).
The company’s aircraft division has also been under intense scrutiny since a disused emergency exit door was blown off one of its planes shortly after takeoff in January.
Subsequently, the US air regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, criticized the company’s quality control.
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