Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner team ship approaches the International Space Station on May 20, 2022, on the business’s Orbital Flight Test-2 objective before immediately docking to the Harmony module’s forward port. The orbiting laboratory was flying 268 miles above the south Pacific at the time of this picture. Credit: NASA
Effective conclusion of a team workout simulation by NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test( CFT) will fly Williams and Wilmore to the orbiting lab for about approximately 2 weeks. They will assess Starliner and its systems before going back to Earth in the Western United States. Liftoff will be aboard a United Launch Alliance(ULA )Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore emerge from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the company’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, January 31, 2024, as part of an incorporated team workout simulation for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT). Credit: NASA/Isaac Watson
Finishing the simulation Wednesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida marks another turning point towards CFT launch. The incorporated workout included involvement from the flight team, NASA, Boeing, and ULA, and enabled groups to practice prelaunch operations starting approximately 4 hours before a targeted liftoff. The workout started with Wilmore and Williams strolling through suit-up treatments inside the Astronaut Crew Quarters in NASA Kennedy’s Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout structure.
Following this, they took an elevator to the ground flooring and left the very same double doors they will on launch day where their team transport automobile was waiting to transfer them to the launch pad. The team and assistance groups then convoyed to the launch pad, where Williams and Wilmore supported operations from the white space– a location at the end of the launch tower’s team gain access to arm that will supply access to the spacecraft. The rest of the wedding rehearsal included the team taking a trip back to NASA Kennedy to support from Boeing’s Mission Control.
Over the next numerous weeks, groups will go through extra simulations concentrated on each stage of the objective. Some upcoming turning points consist of CFT accreditation, sustaining Starliner with propellants, and stacking Starliner on the Atlas V rocket before presenting to the launch pad in preparation for liftoff.
Starliner finished 2 uncrewed flight tests: Orbital Flight Test-2which introduced from Cape Canaveral and finished its spaceport station objective in May 2022, and Orbital Flight Test-1which offered groups with extra flight information in December 2019. Throughout these 2 uncrewed objectives, the end-to-end abilities of the spacecraft were effectively evaluated.