Boeing’s first crewed test flight to the International Space Station has been delayed. Again.
The launch—initially postponed to August, then rescheduled for Dec. 17—is now targeted for the morning of Thursday, Dec. 19.
NASA, Boeing, and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) agreed to the new date “to allow ULA sufficient time to resolve an issue with the rocket’s purge air supply,” according to NASA.
Despite multiple setbacks, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is nearly ready for takeoff.
Headed for the ISS on the company’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test, Starliner recently made the 10-mile trek from the Kennedy Space Center to Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.
“This is critical to our future as a nation,” Space Center Director Bob Cabana said in a November statement. “We’ve got to get astronauts flying on U.S. rockets from U.S. soil, and this is just a huge step forward.”
Secure atop a ULA Alliance Atlas V rocket, the spacecraft is ready for its first flight test in two weeks.
The trial will provide valuable data on the end-to-end performance of the Atlas V rocket, Starliner spacecraft, and grous systems, as well as in-orbit docking and landing operations.
That information will then be used as part of NASA’s process of certifying Boeing’s crew transportation system for carrying astronauts to and from the ISS.
“This is the dawn of a new era,” according to Boeing rocketeer Chris Ferguson, one of three astronauts assigned to the Starliner Crew Test Flight mission.
NASA’s Nicole Mann and Mike Fincke (who replaced Eric Boe due to medical reasons) will join Ferguson as the first human crew to pilot Boeing’s Starliner spaceship.
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