June 1st, Washington, DC :
Indian-origin Following a series of setbacks for the combined mission of the US space agency NASA and aeroplane company Boeing, Sunita Williams' piloted 'Starliner' is scheduled to go into space on Saturday. Williams' third space trip will be marked by this flight.
Launch from Florida's Kennedy Space Centre is expected to occur at approximately 10 pm Indian Standard Time today, according to NASA, for the voyage to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS).
'Suni' Williams and fellow NASA astronaut Barry 'Butch' Wilmore will be the pioneers of the Commercial Crew Programme, the first humans to travel aboard Starliner spacecraft.
The United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket will be used to launch the Starliner spacecraft into orbit. Once it docks with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday, the astronauts will spend approximately one week there performing a variety of tests. After disengaging from the International Space Station, the Starliner will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and land in the southwestern United States on June 10, according to NASA.
Astroliner and its systems will be finalised for crewed rotation trips to the International Space Station if this mission is successful, according to NASA. The Starliner spacecraft will transport four people, or a combination of crew and cargo, on NASA missions to low Earth orbit. During a prelaunch media briefing from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, the agency announced that Boeing, ULA (United Launch Alliance), and NASA are all prepared for the June 1, launch of the agency's Boeing Crew Flight Test.
Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Programme, expressed his admiration for the teams' immense effort over the past 2.5 weeks in getting ready for launch. "We're really prepared to take flight," he declared.
Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the site of the May 30 rollout of the integrated ULA Atlas 5 rocket and Starliner spacecraft stack, which was in readiness for liftoff.
Upon their return to the Florida spaceport on May 28, Williams and Wilmore were both kept in preflight quarantine within the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building.
A valve malfunction in the upper stage of the Atlas 5 rocket caused mission managers of the Crewed Test Flight (CFT) of the Boeing Starliner to cancel the flight on May 7, only two hours before liftoff. The valve was changed and checked on May 11 to ensure it was functioning correctly, according to Boeing's statement.
A "small helium leak" in the spacecraft's service module caused the postponement of the CFT mission from May 17 to May 21, according to NASA's announcement later on May 14.
The launch was further delayed to May 25, according to the space agency's announcement on May 17. This mission, the first human-manned Starliner trip by Boeing, is a component of the Commercial Crew Programme, a public-private cooperation between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States aerospace industry aimed at launching humans from the United States aboard American rockets and spacecraft.
U.S. crew transportation to the International Space Station was awarded to Boeing and SpaceX in September 2014 by NASA. For NASA missions, these interconnected spacecraft, rockets, and related equipment can accommodate up to four humans, allowing for a crew of seven on the space station to make the most of the time spent conducting scientific research there.
Boeing successfully completed the unmanned Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) in 2022 following a failed attempt in December 2019. In six months, the aerospace business claims that the Starliner will be ready for ten missions of reuse.
Since its maiden voyage on May 30, 2020, the Crew Dragon, owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX, has completed twelve crewed trips. The International Space Station was commanded by both Williams and Wilmore in the past.
Williams (Needham, MA) attended the United States Naval Academy for his bachelor's degree in physical science and the Florida Institute of Technology for his master's degree in engineering management. According to NASA, her maiden spaceflight was Expedition 14/15, which lasted from December 2006 to June 2007. She boarded the International Station on the space shuttle Discovery's STS-116 mission.
Williams set a new record for women on board by completing four spacewalks during her tenure there. After her service was over, she returned to Earth on June 22, 2007, when the shuttle Atlantis touched down at California's Edwards Air Force Base as part of the STS-117 mission.
Williams, who was chosen as an astronaut by NASA in June 1998, has completed two missions in orbit and logged 322 days of total time in space. On seven separate spacewalks, he has accrued 50 hours and 40 minutes of cumulative EVA time. Williams was a member of the first Expedition crew and collaborated with Roscosmos on their contributions to the space station.
Wilmore, who is 61 years old, has spent 178 days in space and has completed four spacewalks, clocking 25 hours and 36 minutes each. Before the ISS is expected to cease operations in six years, Boeing has scheduled six human trips for the platform. SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's Starliner are the two rockets that NASA intends to employ to launch astronauts into orbit from the United States at least once every six months. Commercial crew trips to the International Space Station were assigned to Boeing and SpaceX, respectively, by NASA in 2014. The United States government allocated over $4 billion to Boeing for the Starliner's development, while SpaceX received approximately $2.6 billion.
