Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams tells the story as she flies into space aboard the Boeing Starliner

New Delhi:

Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams rocketed into space, making history as the first woman to test a spacecraft on its inaugural mission, which she helped design over the last decade. Ms. Williams flew over India on her way to space.

It lifted off aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on the Atlas 5 rocket at 8:22 pm (IST) from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This is her third space flight.

Takeoff took place on the third attempt and was nominal. Starliner has obtained the correct orbit and will dock with the International Space Station a day later. Today, the US has three manned spacecraft simultaneously in orbit – the Boeing Starliner, the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the International Space Station.

NASA says that if all goes well, the Starliner will dock at the front door of the station’s Harmony module and Ms. Williams and her co-passenger Butch Wilmore will remain at the space station for about a week to test the spacecraft and its subsystems before from NASA. works to complete final certification of the transportation system for rotational missions to the orbital laboratory as part of its Commercial Crew Program.

Starliner was designed by astronauts for astronauts and is the most modern crew module ever launched, NASA said.

Williams, a poster girl for women who aspire to fly into space, took to the skies in a brand-new spacecraft.

Previously, the Indian-origin astronaut had spent 322 days in space and held the record for the maximum number of hours of spacewalk completed by a woman, before being surpassed by Peggy Whitson.

This time, she makes history as the first woman to fly the first manned mission of a new space shuttle.

The 59-year-old admitted to being a little nervous, but said she wasn’t afraid of flying in a new spacecraft she helped design with engineers from NASA and Boeing. “When I get to the International Space Station, it will be like coming home,” she said.

The nearly 10-day mission will help Starliner prove its space capabilities. It would also prove the team’s readiness to obtain a NASA certification and perform long-duration missions for the U.S. space agency.

The Starliner is long behind schedule and over budget, with some saying the problems plaguing Boeing in its aviation business could be spreading to its space business.

In 2014, NASA awarded a $4.2 billion contract to produce it from scratch, and ten years later it has not seen a single successful human spaceflight. In contrast, Space X, which received a similar contract for the development of the Crew Dragon, was delivered at an estimated cost of $2.6 billion. SpaceX is already transporting astronauts to the ISS using its crew module.