Boeing has an opportunity Monday night to restore some luster to its tarnished name, with the scheduled first crewed launch from Florida of Starliner, a groundbreaking new capsule designed to transform human exploration of space.
Although the company’s space operations are entirely independent of its aerospace wing, which has been plagued by a recent series of safety and quality issuesthe spacecraft’s path to the Cape Canaveral launch pad, and planned 10:34 PM ET liftoff, was similarly bumpy.
The two Nasa astronauts who will ride Starliner to the International Space Station should have flown in 2017, before supply and production delays, hardware and software issues, and the failure of an unmanned test flight five years ago the schedule went awry.
While Boeing was solving its problems, its main competitor in commercial spaceflight, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, completed 340 launches. more than 50 astronauts in orbit and promote his mighty ones spaceshipthe world’s largest and most powerful rocket, intended to carry humans to Mars by the end of the next decade.
However, Boeing executives are confident that the setbacks have been overcome, thanks to the commitment of hundreds of its own employees, as well as nearly 450 suppliers from 37 states. If successful, Monday’s week-long test mission will lead to six further astronaut rotation flights to the space station that Nasa has ordered as part of its commercial crew program.
“No matter what’s going on around us, no matter how difficult the situation is, the people on this team just keep their heads up to do the things that may feel impossible at the moment,” Aaron Kraftcheck, senior manager for Starliner ‘s flight software, design and development, told reporters last month.
“The whole company rallied around us. I get emotional talking about it.”
The Starliner capsule, officially called CST-100 (crew space transport), has interior space similar to a mid-size SUV, and has a capacity of seven, although it will be configured for four astronauts and cargo for space station flights.
Each capsule can be flown up to 10 times, Boeing say, with a six-month turnaround between each mission. Innovation includes Starliner’s weldless design, which reduces the risk of structural failure, and highly developed software that enables the spacecraft to fly, navigate and correct course autonomously.
That means the American astronauts aboard Monday’s flight, Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, each veterans of three space shuttle missions, will mostly monitor its progress in communications with ground crews, but can step in to take over manually if needed.
“To do the cool stuff that Starliner does, there’s a lot of complexity in the system and in every component,” Kraftcheck said. “The most challenging and rewarding part is figuring out how to make it all work together.
“[It’s] like an orchestra. Starliner has many instruments playing different, complicated parts, but it is the timing and interaction between each instrument that is particularly critical.”
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Boeing showcased the capsule during a final unmanned test mission in May 2022, its successful doc with the space station making it the second US-built, manned spacecraft to reach the outpost after SpaceX’s Dragon.
The astronauts were in quarantine at the Kennedy Space Center since April 25 to prepare for Monday’s flight, but their overall wait was much longer. Williams was assigned to the running back in 2018, and Wilmore upgraded from a backup role two years later.
Wilmore said the delays only helped them become more familiar with the capsule, and prepare for the challenges of the mission.
“We’ve gone through training and we have our fingerprints on every single procedure that exists for this spacecraft,” he said at a virtual press conference from Cape Canaveral.
“We are fully trained in all aspects of Starliner.”
