The launch of the first manned flight of the Boeing Starliner capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) should take place in July, after multiple postponements, the US aeronautical giant and NASA announced Wednesday.
The CST-100 Starliner mission is not expected to continue until July 21, officials from both entities said.
“We discussed and decided that the best launch attempt would not be until July 21” for the crewed test flight, Steve Stich, NASA’s crewed commercial program manager, told reporters.
The American space agency wants to mount a second means of transport to the ISS for its astronauts, with the SpaceX capsule already in service.
Boeing ‘confident’ in launch date
But Boeing suffered a series of setbacks that significantly delayed its schedule, including a failed test flight in 2019. The company finally succeeded in May 2022 in reaching the ISS for the first time, with no crew on board.
Boeing had hoped to be able to make its first crewed flight in 2022, before it was first postponed to February 2023 and then to April.
“We’re pretty confident about that date” of July 21, said Mark Nappi, Starliner program manager at Boeing.
According to Steve Stich, more time is needed to certify the parachute system designed to safely carry astronauts and the capsule to Earth. In May there will be a ground test of the parachutes.
A mission of at least eight days on the ISS
The Starliner capsule will carry two NASA astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, to the ISS, where they are expected to stay for at least eight days. The launch will be carried out using an Atlas V rocket (manufactured by the United Launch Alliance consortium) from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
If the mission is successful, the Boeing capsule will finally be able to be certified and begin its operational flights, at a date yet to be determined. NASA signed fixed-price contracts with SpaceX ($2.6 billion) and Boeing ($4.2 billion) in 2014.
By using two companies, he wants to diversify his options, never again to risk running out of American transportation, as happened after the shutdown of the space shuttles in 2011. Until SpaceX, NASA was forced to pay for seats on Russian planes. Soyuz rockets.
Elon Musk’s company, still new to the aerospace industry compared to Boeing, has already transported 18 astronauts to the ISS with its own capsule, Dragon, as well as four private passengers, during a space tourism mission.
Source: BFM TV
