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Updated August 26th, 2022 at 15:18 IST

Boeing's Starliner to launch NASA astronauts to International Space Station in Feb 2023

Boeing will launch its Starliner for the first Crew Flight Test with two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in early February 2023.

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
NASA
Image: Boeing | Image:self
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Boeing’s first crewed mission for NASA will now launch no earlier than February 2023, the company said in an official release. Named Crew Flight Test (CFT), the mission will see Boeing launch two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. 

The astronauts chosen for this mission are Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams who will live and work aboard the ISS for roughly eight days. In a press briefing on late August 25, Boeing revealed that they were avoiding a December 2022 launch because they need time to fix issues identified during the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission which launched on May 20. 

The issues faced by OFT-2 Starliner capsule were an early shutdown of two of Starliner's orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) thrusters and a glitch in the Vision-based Electro-optical Sensor Tracking Assembly (VESTA) which helped it dock with the space station. 

“NASA and Boeing also are working to close out the OFT-2 in-flight anomalies prior to Starliner’s next flight with astronauts”, Boeing said in a statement. “Those include the early shutoff of some thrusters and a cooling loop anomaly. System enhancements to improve crew interfaces and streamline spacecraft operations are also planned”. 

Boeing, however, says that Starliner achieved all flight test objectives and mission operations demonstrations, including rendezvous and docking maneuvers and the ability to execute an abort near the ISS if needed. During the first uncrewed mission, Starliner made 94 orbits of the Earth and covered a distance of 3.9 million km before returning after six days in space. 

Boeing’s CFT mission

The CFT mission is scheduled to liftoff in February next year on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Boeing is currently halfway through winning a crew and cargo launch license from NASA. If everything goes according to plan, NASA will begin the process of certifying Starliner for a crewed mission to the space station. Currently, SpaceX is the only private company that is conducting crew and cargo launches for NASA after its Dragon spacecraft was certified in 2020.

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Published August 26th, 2022 at 15:18 IST

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