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Boeing has a chance Monday night to bring some shine back to its tarnished name, with the planned first crewed launch from Florida of Starliner, a pioneering new capsule designed to transform human space exploration.
Although the company’s space operations are completely independent of its aviation wing, which has been affected by a recent series of safety and quality issuesthe spacecraft’s path to the Cape Canaveral launch pad and scheduled liftoff at 10:34 p.m. ET was just as bumpy.
The two NASA astronauts who will be riding Starliner to the International Space Station was due to launch in 2017, before supply and production halts, hardware and software problems, and unmanned test flight failure five years ago skewed the graph.
While Boeing worked to fix its problems, its main rival in commercial spaceflight, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, carried out 340 launches, sent more than 50 astronauts in orbit and advanced his power starshipthe world’s largest and most powerful rocket, designed to carry humans to Mars by the end of the next decade.
But Boeing managers are confident that the setbacks have been overcome thanks to the dedication of hundreds of its own employees, as well as nearly 450 suppliers from 37 states. If successful, Monday’s week-long test mission will lead to six more orbital flights of astronauts to the space station, which NASA ordered as part of commercial crew program.
“No matter what’s going on around us, no matter how difficult the situation, the people on this team just keep their heads down, doing things that might feel impossible right now,” Aaron Kraftcheck, senior manager for Starliner’s flight software. design and development, told reporters last month.
“The whole company has rallied around us. I get emotional talking about it.
The Starliner capsule, officially named CST-100 (Space Crew Transport), has interior space similar to a medium SUV and has a capacity of seven, although it will be configured for four astronauts and cargo for space station flights.
Each capsule can be flown up to 10 times, Boeing says, with a six-month turnaround between each mission. Innovations include the Starliner’s weldless design, which reduces the risk of structural failure, and advanced software that allows the spacecraft to fly, navigate and correct its course autonomously.
That means the U.S. astronauts aboard Monday’s flight, Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, each a veteran of three space shuttle missions, will mostly monitor its progress in communicating with ground crews, but they may intervene. to take over manually if necessary.
“To do the great things that the Starliner does, there’s a lot of complexity in the system and in every component,” Kraftcheck said. “The most challenging and rewarding part is figuring out how to make everything work together.
“[It’s] like an orchestra. Starliner has many instruments playing different, complex parts, but the timing and interplay between each instrument is especially critical.”
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Boeing showed off the capsule during a final uncrewed test mission in May 2022. docked successfully with the space station, making it the second US-built, manned spacecraft to reach the outpost since SpaceX’s Dragon.
The astronauts were quarantined at Kennedy space Center since April 25 to prepare for Monday’s flight, but generally their wait is much longer. Williams was assigned to the flight in 2018, and Wilmore moved from a backup role two years later.
Wilmore said the delays only helped them become more familiar with the capsule and prepare for the challenges of the mission.
“We’ve gone through training and have fingerprints on every single procedure that exists for this spacecraft,” he said at a virtual press conference from Cape Canaveral.
“We are fully trained in all aspects of the Starliner.”
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