Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been given the green light for its first crewed space mission, scheduled for the early hours of next Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the International Space Station (ISS).
The information was provided this Friday by NASA and the North American aircraft manufacturer. The head of the North American Space Agency’s commercial crew program, Steve Stich, stressed that the final preparatory checks of the mission were positive, and the spacecraft received final clearance for flight.
The capsule will lift off on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral platform at 10:34 pm Monday (3:34 a.m. Lisbon time) with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board.
“A completely new adventure awaits us. This is an important part of our space exploration and what I call the ‘golden age of space exploration,'” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Friday.
The success of this mission will mean that NASA will have a second supplier after SpaceX to transport crewed missions and cargo to the space laboratory, according to contracts signed with the two companies in 2014.
“Our goal was for the commercial team to have two independent space transportation systems,” Stich said.
If the launch is successful, the spacecraft will arrive at the ISS on Wednesday, with its two crew members remaining on the station for about a week before returning to the southwestern United States using Starliner’s advanced parachute system.
Last year, problems found in the parachute system and some fiberglass straps forced the mission to be postponed with a month and a half left before takeoff scheduled for July 21.
On May 19, 2022, Boeing successfully launched the uncrewed OFT 2 mission, which docked with the ISS the next day, where the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft remained for four days before autonomously detaching and then landing in New Mexico (USA).
The 5-meter-tall, 4.6-meter-diameter capsule is reusable (with a limit of 10 uses) and has a maximum capacity of seven people, although manned missions commissioned by NASA under this program typically carry four to five passengers.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Tifany Hawkins, a professional journalist with years of experience in news reporting. I currently work for a prominent news website and write articles for 24NewsReporters as an author. My primary focus is on economy-related stories, though I am also experienced in several other areas of journalism.