The introduction experimental flight of a Boeing Starliner space traveler taxi for NASA is prepared to fly, with incredible climate expected for its launch to the International Space Station Friday (Dec. 20).
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the uncrewed CST-100 Starliner spacecraft from Space Launch Compex 41 here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station just before dawn on Friday. Liftoff is set for 6:36 a.m. EST (1136 GMT).
“It’s just incredibly proud and humbling to be here this week. It’s really a culmination of years of really hard work by integrated NASA, Boeing and ULA teams,” John Mulholland, VP and program director of Boeing’s Commercial Crew program, said in a prelaunch news meeting at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida today (Dec. 17). “This is really setting up to be a really incredible week.”
Starliner’s forthcoming flight, called the Orbital Flight Test, will launch a human test sham named Rosie (named after the World War II symbol Rosie the Riveter) in the midst of 595 lbs. (270 kilograms) of freight to the station, including radiation observing gear, apparel, food and holiday presents to the station. The spacecraft will dock at the circling lab, at that point come back to Earth around Dec. 28. The weeklong crucial fill in as an investigation voyage for future maintained flights of Starliner containers for NASA.
Boeing is one of two business companies (SpaceX is the other) with multi-billion-dollar agreements to fly space travelers to and from the International Space Station on business spaceships. NASA picked the two companies to be its business team suppliers in 2014 to assuage the U.S. agency’s reliance on Russia’s Soyuz rocket to fly Americans into soace. The U.S. has depended on Soyuz vehicles since NASA’s space transport armada resigned in 2011.
“I am really looking forward to the maiden voyage of the Boeing Starliner this Friday,” Kathy Lueders, chief of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, said at the news conference.
Lueders depicted the uncrewed crucial “a gift, they [uncrewed flights like this] give us the opportunity to really see how the integrated system works through all the phases of flights, but also, more importantly, it helps us as a joint team. How we’re gonna work together and get ourselves ready for our crewed mission coming up.”
While solid winds and chilly climate may be blowing around in Florida this week, current expectations recommend that there is a 80% possibility that the climate will be reasonable for a protected liftoff.
“All l things considered,things are looking fairly good for the week’s end,” Will Ulrich, launch climate official with the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. ” If the launch is delayed, however, Boeing can make another launch attempt on on Saturday (Dec. 21) and Monday (Dec. 23), if needed.”
This strategic be a basic test fully expecting Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), which will be the first maintained crucial Starliner.
Following its Friday launch, Starliner is planned to dock at an opportune time Saturday at about 8:27 EST (1327 GMT)). After about seven days up in space, the art will make a fast trip home on Dec. 28, with undocking to landing taking only barely four hours, Boeing agents said.
“We are actually tracking no spacecraft anomalies … the spacecraft is in really good shape,” Mulholland said. “We’re Looking forward to a really short, quick and successful mission.”