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NASA, Boeing Say Space Capsule Without Star Lines Launched To ISS Today


Astronauts and NASA officials said Wednesday that Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is ready for this week’s unmanned launch to the International Space Station, a long-delayed test mission aimed at prove the aerospace giant can safely fly humans through space.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule, a gum-shaped astronaut capsule, has experienced several failures in recent years. A software problem in 2019 affected its first attempt to dock with the space station. Fuel valve problems last year added to the nine-month delay.

At 6:54pm EDT (4:24am IST, May 20) on Thursday at From NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Starliner is set to make another attempt to launch to the space station without any astronauts on board, in a bid to give Boeing a much-needed success as the company’s attempt force through successive crises in the jet business and elsewhere in space and its defense unit.

“We wouldn’t be here right now if we weren’t confident that this would be a successful mission,” said Butch Wilmore, a NASA astronaut likely to fly on the Starliner’s maiden flight in the future. , told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re ready. This spaceship is ready.”

Kathy Lueders, NASA’s director of space operations, emphasized that the Starliner flight was a test mission: “The teams have worked really hard to get this ready. “We learned a lot from the first demo (in 2019). We’ll learn a lot from the second.”

Last year’s valve problems prompted Boeing to issue temporary fixes for this week’s mission, company officials said Tuesday, adding that the fixes are long-term. will be done after the mission. The issues have caused a conflict with one of Boeing’s main suppliers to the Starliner, Reuters reported last week.

The Starliner will attempt to dock at the space station on Friday and spend four to five days attached to the orbiting outpost before returning to Earth. If all goes to plan, the Starliner could fly its first crew in the fall, although NASA officials warn that this could be delayed.

Butch and NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, two of 44 in NASA’s active astronaut corps, have been assigned to the next crewed test flight. But NASA officials, reluctant to force two of their astronauts into a flight for which the launch date is uncertain, said Wednesday the mission could carry at least two of the four astronauts. trained to fly the Starliner test flight.

Delays and technical problems with the Starliner have cost Boeing US$595 million (about 4,622 crore) in fees since the capsule crash in 2019. The spacecraft was developed under a fixed-price contract. $4.5 billion (about 34,959 crore) of NASA in a targeted program, with both Boeing and its rival By Elon Musk SpaceX, to provide the US space agency with two rotating astronaut trips to the space station.

© Thomson Reuters 2022




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