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After years of delays and multiple launch postponements in recent weeks, Boeing Space’s Starliner spacecraft finally transported its first crew to orbit on Wednesday, June 6.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are currently on their way to the International Space Station (ISS) after lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday morning in the Starliner’s maiden crewed test, carried by a ULA Atlas V rocket.
Boeing shared a short highlights reel (below) showing how the launch day unfolded.
Check out the highlights from today's #Starliner #CFT launch atop a @ulalaunch #AtlasV, which lifted off at 10:52 a.m. ET.
Stay tuned for docking with @Space_Station on June 6. pic.twitter.com/8z0KbWxmlO
— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) June 5, 2024
The successful liftoff will come as a big relief to everyone involved, not least Wilmore and Williams, who had already experienced two countdown halts due to technical issues. The most recent of these occurred at the start of this month when the launch was scrubbed with just 3 minutes and 50 seconds remaining before the rocket was set to fire up its engines to begin the long-awaited mission.
Following Wednesday’s flawless liftoff, the Starliner is now well into its first crewed test flight and will dock with the space station on Thursday. Wilmore and Williams will spend about a week aboard the orbital outpost before returning home in the Starliner for a parachute-assisted touchdown in the south-western U.S.
This is the third time the Starliner has flown to space, but the first flight with a crew aboard. Its first flight took place in 2019 but failed to reach the correct orbit to put it on course for the ISS. The mission surfaced a long list of software issues that had to be resolved before the spacecraft could fly again. Eventually it launched again in 2022 and successfully docked with the station, paving the way for the first crewed test.
Assuming the Starliner functions as expected during this current mission, NASA will be able to use the spacecraft for future astronaut flights to and from the space station, giving it another transportation option alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which has been carrying crews since 2020.
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