Boeing’s Starliner capsule is all set to launch on the uncrewed Orbital Flight Check 2 (OFT-2) mission to the Worldwide House Station (ISS).
Following a Could 11 flight readiness evaluate, NASA and Boeing are concentrating on an instantaneous launch window of Could 19 at 6:54 p.m. EDT (2254 GMT) for liftoff of Starliner atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. This might be Starliner’s second try to rendezvous and dock with the ISS, and a important step in NASA’s certification of the Boeing spacecraft for human passengers.
Starliner’s first OFT mission, in December 2019, actually fell in need of expectations, failing to realize the required orbit to achieve the Worldwide House Station attributable to software program glitches. Boeing readied Starliner for a do-over in early August 2021, however preflight checks hours earlier than liftoff revealed issues in over half of the oxidizer valves in Starliner’s propulsion system, and the launch was scrubbed. The capsule was unstacked from its Atlas V and returned to Boeing for repairs.
In pictures: Boeing’s Starliner OFT-2 mission in footage
Now, with the valve points lastly resolved, Starliner has been declared able to roll as soon as extra.
NASA is relying on the success of OFT-2 with the intention to start sending astronauts to the area station in bigger numbers. NASA’s close to decade-long reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to taxi crews to and from the orbital laboratory was solely just lately eased by SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which launched its fourth operational crewed mission to the ISS final month.
In 2014, NASA, identified for an abundance of cautionary redundancy, signed contracts with each SpaceX and Boeing to design and develop automobiles to launch astronauts to the area station. Starliner’s eventual certification will absolutely notice NASA’s objectives for its Industrial Crew Program and permit the area company to reduce its reliance on any single human spaceflight launch supplier.
NASA says Starliner will spend between 5 to 10 days docked with the ISS on OFT-2 earlier than returning to Earth for a touchdown within the western United States. If profitable, NASA and Boeing hope to launch the capsule with its first crew earlier than the tip of 2022.
OFT-2 is scheduled to dock to the forward-facing port of the ISS’s Concord module roughly a day after launch, and it’ll ship over 400 kilos (180 kilograms) of meals and different provisions for the present station crews. Within the occasion of any technical or climate points throughout Thursday’s countdown, NASA indicated {that a} backup launch window is offered on Could 20 at 6:32 p.m. EDT (2232 GMT).
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