Highlight
• The gumdrop-shaped CST-100 Starliner lifted off from the Cape Canaveral U.S. Space Force Station in Florida shortly before 7 p.m.
• V rocket provided by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Boeing’s new Starliner capsule took off Thursday on a redo uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station, aiming to provide the company with much-needed success after more than two years of delays and costly engineering setbacks.
Overview
The gumdrop-shaped CST-100 Starliner lifted off shortly before 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, atop an Atlas V rocket provided by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA).
The Starliner reached its intended preliminary orbit about 30 minutes after liftoff, after separating from the upper-stage Atlas V rocket and flying on its own toward a trajectory for a later rendezvous with the space station.
“Starliner is in orbit, on its way to the International Space Station,” Boeing launch commentator Josh Barrett said during a NASA webcast as the target orbit was reached. During Starliner’s previous test flight in late 2019, a software glitch effectively prevented the spacecraft from reaching the space station.
A successful mission will bring NASA one step closer to transporting astronauts to and from the space station.
If everything goes as planned, the capsule will gradually raise its orbit as it travels to the space station, arriving in about 24 hours to dock with the research outpost circling 250 miles (400 km) above Earth on Friday evening.
The Boeing spacecraft will spend four to five days attached to the space station before undocking and flying back to Earth, landing with a parachute on the desert floor of White Sands, New Mexico.
A successful mission will bring NASA one step closer to having a second reliable means of transporting astronauts to and from the space station
Since resuming crewed flights to orbit from American soil in 2020, nine years after the space shuttle program ended, NASA has had to rely solely on Elon Musk’s company SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets and Crew
Dragon capsules to transport astronauts.
Previously, the only other way to reach the orbital laboratory was to board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. “Having a backup is important to the country,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told Reuters hours before the launch.
The launch on Thursday also comes at a critical juncture for Boeing, which is struggling to recover from crises in both its jetliner and space-defense businesses. Since the failure of its first uncrewed test flight to orbit in 2019, the Starliner program alone has forced Boeing to incur $595 million in charges.
