Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, destined to transport two NASA astronauts to the ISS, will soon relocate from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to Cape Canaveral for its scheduled launch on May 6. Credit: NASA
NASA is preparing for a crewed flight test of the Starliner spacecraft, which will transport astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station for a week-long mission.
The spacecraft set to carry two NASA astronauts on the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station (ISS) is ready to move from its production facility to the launch site. Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will roll out of the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 16, to the Vertical Integration Facility at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to connect to the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is lifted at the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on May 4, 2022. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
The crewed flight test is targeting launch no earlier than 10:34 p.m. Monday, May 6 from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will fly aboard Starliner and will dock at the space station’s forward port of the Harmony module. The duo will spend about a week at the orbiting laboratory before Starliner makes a parachute and airbag-assisted landing in the southwestern United States.
After successful completion of the mission, NASA will begin the final process of certifying Starliner and its systems for crewed rotation missions to the space station. The Starliner capsule, with a diameter of 15 feet (4.56m) and the capability to steer automatically or manually, will carry four astronauts, or a mix of crew and cargo, for NASA missions to low Earth orbit.
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