space travel
“Starliner” should be ready for launch in March
Boeing’s “Starliner” is rolled to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome in Florida. photo
© Joel Kowsky/NASA via AP/dpa
Due to technical problems, the test flight of the Boeing spacecraft to the International Space Station ISS had to be postponed several times. At the beginning of next year it should finally be ready.
The Troubled Spaceship”Starliner” should be ready for take-off in March. The US space agency Nasa and the US aircraft manufacturer Boeing announced at a press conference when the first manned test flight could actually take place.
It was only announced in June that the test flight to the International Space Station ISS would have to be postponed further due to new technical problems. There are problems with the parachute system and a strap on a cable connector that turned out to be flammable. There has been great progress in solving these problems, Nasa and Boeing have now announced.
The “Starliner” with Nasa astronauts Barry Wilmore and Suni Williams on board should have started in July for the ISS and stayed there for about a week. This date had also been postponed several times before.
In May 2022, the “Starliner” completed a successful unmanned flight to the ISS for the first time and spent four days there – an important test for the spacecraft. In the future, it will transport astronauts to the ISS as an alternative to SpaceX’s “Crew Dragon” space capsule. However, the project is well behind schedule due to a number of issues.