2024-04-25 20:29:00
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are set to board this test flight on May 6, years late, to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) for about a week.
“We’re expanding the agency’s ability to get to and from the space station, and that’s very important,” Butch said at a news conference.
Since 2020, NASA astronauts have been transported to the ISS using SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.
The US space agency wants to have another service provider, but for several years Boeing has accumulated development problems on the Starliner.
After a failed flight in 2019, the spacecraft finally managed to reach the ISS in May 2022 – without a crew on board.
It must now complete a manned test to be certified, and begin its operational flights.
Boeing had hoped to be able to carry out this first manned flight in 2022, but subsequent delays continued.
The astronauts, both of whom have already been to the ISS, expressed their “complete confidence” in this new spacecraft on Thursday.
The rocket that will propel the Starliner capsule on May 6 is an Atlas V from United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
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