Boeing’s spaceflight program could reach a significant milestone this Monday night (6) with the launch of its spacecraft Starlinertransporting — finally — two astronauts from NASA to orbit.
The mission, called Crew Flight Test, could take off as early as Monday at 11:34 pm (Brasília time) from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida.
Live coverage of the event will be broadcast on NASA channels from 7:30 pm (Brasília time) on Monday, according to the space agency. See the video below.
The occasion is a decade in the making — the culmination of Boeing’s efforts to develop a spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
Development delays, flight test problems and other costly setbacks slowed Starliner’s path to launch. Meanwhile, Boeing’s rival in NASA’s commercial crew program — SpaceX — has become the transportation provider of choice for the space agency’s astronauts.
Now, NASA and Boeing have finally deemed the Starliner spacecraft ready for its final test: allowing astronauts to test the vehicle in outer space.
Veteran NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will be aboard Monday’s mission, traveling on the Starliner to the International Space Station for a weeklong stay.
During the flight, Wilmore and Williams will perform a series of tests, including briefly taking control of the autonomous spacecraft and evaluating how the vehicle operates for the astronauts.
A smooth flight could be a victorious moment for Boeing’s spaceflight program and the company as a whole, which has been under scrutiny due to problems with its commercial plane division.
Here’s what you need to know about Starliner’s journey ahead of its historic crewed test flight.
The human component
Boeing officials have sought to make clear that Starliner operates separately from the company’s commercial aircraft sector. And the Starliner team’s primary interest is ensuring a smooth test mission and crew safety, according to Mark Nappi, vice president and Starliner program manager at Boeing.
“We are transporting humans on this ship. We always take this very seriously,” Nappi said during a press conference last week. “I spent my career in this business, and it was always top of the list.”
The two Starliner astronauts waited years for the spacecraft to be considered ready to carry crew. After several astronauts rotated through assignments on the Starliner Crew Flight Test, Wilmore received her appointment in 2020. NASA moved Williams to this flight in 2022, after initially assigning her in 2018 to a later Starliner mission.
“We had a couple of release dates and we were like, ‘OK, we’re ready to go,’” Williams said at a press conference on Wednesday. “But now it’s really, finally real, and I kind of have to pinch myself a little to understand that, in fact, we are going.”
At a press conference last month, Steve Stich, the program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said the agency required Boeing and SpaceX to meet a certain threshold regarding the risk that the mission would result in the death of astronauts — 1 in 270.
“Boeing exceeds that number with a crew loss of 1 in 295,” he said.
Starliner’s bumpy path
Boeing received a contract from NASA to build Starliner in 2014 at the same time the space agency selected SpaceX to build its Crew Dragon capsule.
NASA has given the companies deals worth up to a combined $6.8 billion, expecting Boeing and SpaceX to have their capsules ready to fly as early as 2017.
This expectation did not materialize.
SpaceX took longer than planned, conducting the inaugural astronaut launch from its Crew Dragon capsule in the summer of 2020. Since then, it has completed 13 orbital missions for NASA astronauts and paying customers.
But Boeing — despite NASA officials initially believing Starliner would be ready before SpaceX’s Crew Dragon — faced years of additional delays, setbacks and extra expenses that cost the company more than $1 billion, according to financial records. public.
Notably, Starliner’s first test mission, flown without a crew in late 2019, was fraught with problems. The spacecraft failed in orbit, a symptom of software problems that included a coding error that set an internal clock by 11 hours.
A second uncrewed flight test in 2022 revealed additional software problems and difficulties with some of the spacecraft’s thrusters.
These setbacks delayed the inaugural crewed flight until 2023. But then new problems arose — the spacecraft’s parachutes had some weaker components than expected, and the tape on the spacecraft was discovered to be flammable.
Boeing then had to remove more than a mile of that tape and complete additional testing of the parachutes.
Finally, after a decade of development, NASA and Boeing authorized the spacecraft to transport astronauts.
Williams and Wilmore took a measured approach when answering questions about Starliner spacecraft development issues.
“I understand when you say ‘setbacks,’” Wilmore said during the recent press conference. “But honestly, with all the discoveries — that’s what we call it — we’ve had, it’s been breakthroughs.
“It hasn’t been a setback, it’s been progress,” he said. “And our families lived it with us.”
Williams added that she is prepared to go into Monday’s mission with the expectation that small problems may arise.
“We always find things, and we will continue to find things,” she said Wednesday. “Not everything is going to be absolutely perfect when we fly the spacecraft. And that’s really what our goal is. We’ve managed to get to a point — all of us, great team — where we feel very safe and comfortable with the way this spacecraft flies, and we have backup procedures in case we need them.”
“We’re here,” Williams said, “because we’re ready.”
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