After years of delays, the Starliner space capsule from the US company Boeing is to fly into space with people for the first time. The rocket will launch early Tuesday morning from the Cape Canaveral spaceport.
Ten years ago, then NASA boss Charles Bolden announced a program with which the USA wanted to carry out its own flights to the International Space Station again. The ulterior motive was not to be dependent on Russia for transporting people and goods to the ISS after the end of the space shuttle era.
This time, the US space agency did not want to develop and build the space shuttles itself, but instead commissioned the aircraft manufacturer Boeing and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. From the perspective of the time, Boeing seemed to have an advantage with its “Starliner” spacecraft. The company received an order worth more than four billion dollars, SpaceX 2.6 billion. But things didn’t go smoothly at Boeing; there were crises, problems and delays.
difficulties during the tests
During a first unmanned test in 2019, the Starliner did not even arrive at the ISS due to software problems. A second unmanned test flight was successful in 2022, but then numerous problems arose again, further delaying a planned manned test flight.
Now, on Tuesday morning at 4:34 a.m. Central European Summer Time, a manned Starliner flight is scheduled to take off for the first time from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida – with NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams on board. The capsule will be carried into space by an Atlas V rocket developed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
The Starliner from Boeing is a partially reusable spacecraft that consists of a three-meter-high crew capsule and a service module and is designed for four crew members and, unlike the Crew Dragon, lands on earth rather than on water.
“We’re ready, the spaceship is ready.”
The spacecraft is expected at the ISS on Wednesday, where Wilmore and Williams are expected to stay for around a week. “It almost feels unreal,” said 58-year-old Williams, who has been on board the ISS twice, at a press conference beforehand. “We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t ready,” said her 61-year-old astronaut colleague Wilmore, who has also been in space twice. “We are ready. The spacecraft is ready and the team is ready.”
SpaceX won the race
Meanwhile, competitor SpaceX has long since overtaken Boeing. In 2020, its Crew Dragon successfully undertook a manned test to the ISS for the first time, and astronaut transports have been in progress since then. The eighth regular crew is currently on the space station, having gotten there on the Dragon.