South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Boeing preps for catch-up space flight
Manned Starliner slated for April launch after past issues have been addressed
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the space shuttle and Dragon. All have brought NASA astronauts into space from Florida, but now Boeing looks to join that list with its CST-100 Starliner quickly approaching its first flight with crew on board.
NASA and Boeing officials updated the planned launch as soon as April for the capsule that aims to bring NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on an eight-day mission to the International Space Station launching atop an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
“The hardware is ready to go and there’s margin on the hardware to get to that midto late-April timeframe,” said Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Starliner program manager. “On the flight software, we’ve been doing mission rehearsals and simulations, operational failure scenarios with the crew. ... We’ve got a line of sight to get the mission timeframe and get through all of our reviews.”
Dubbed the Crew Flight Test (CFT), it seeks to give the spacecraft certification to join SpaceX Crew Dragon on regular rotational crew missions to the ISS beginning in 2024. SpaceX and Boeing had been on a similar pace leading up to each of their first uncrewed test flights in 2019, but Boeing’s attempt that December went awry not being able to rendezvous with the ISS.
Fallout from that mission that NASA dubbed a “high visibility close call” led to a revamp of hardware, software and management practices from both Boeing and NASA oversight that delayed the second try of the requisite uncrewed test flight for nearly a year and half until May 2022. That flight proved successful, setting up this first flight with humans on board.
No human has launched from Cape Canaveral since the end of the Gemini program in 1966 with successive human flights all from neighboring Kennedy Space Center.
The Atlas V launch will lift off from Space Launch Complex 41, and if all goes well, will set up Boeing to be certified for its six operational flights that can carry up to four crew to the station. NASA’s plans under the Commercial Crew Program are to have SpaceX and Boeing make one flight per year each with crews staying on board about six months between dockings.
Boeing’s first flight could come in the spring of 2024 with SpaceX set to make its sixth operational flight in just over a week with Crew-6 and the next rotational flight Crew-7 this fall.
“We are taking our time and being very diligent as we work through the final preparation of the flight hardware, the flight software, the crew training and closing out all of the certification products that we need to human rate the Starliner for flight,” said NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich.
Astronauts Wilmore and Williams earlier this month were on site for a run-through of how they would drive out to the launch site, venture up the launch tower and climb into the crew capsule. Next week they’ll get a look at the planned cargo heading up on the mission while continuing simulation prep.
“I’ve had a chance to talk to the crew. The crew is very excited — Butch and Suni — about flying this mission,” Stich said also noting that the SpaceX Crew-6 team is looking forward to welcoming them as visitors when they get to the space station.
He said prep work is about 80% done with the next major milestone coming in March with propellant loading into the capsule’s service module before it’s eventually stacked atop the Atlas V rocket.
“We’ll go fly Starliner when we’re ready and take it one step at a time,” Stich said.
Follow Orlando Sentinel space coverage at Facebook.com/goforlaunchsentinel.