Watch the livestream of the first crewed launch of Boeing Starliner within the participant above. Protection begins at 6 p.m. EDT Monday, with the launch set for 10:34 p.m. EDT.
First crewed Boeing Starliner to launch Monday
Boeing’s Starliner will make its first crewed launch to the Worldwide Area Station on Monday, Could 6, 2024. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will trip a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Area Launch Advanced-41 at Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station in Florida. Liftoff is scheduled for 10:34 p.m. EDT Monday (or 2:34 UTC on Tuesday, Could 7). Watch the livestream within the participant above.
The 2 astronauts will spend a few week on the Worldwide Area Station earlier than making their return journey on Starliner. Starliner will land within the American West with the help of parachutes and airbags. That is the third check for Starliner. The newest check was in 2022, when Starliner visited the space station with out people onboard.
Progress and objectives
The aim of Starliner is to have a reusable crew capsule that may be flown on as much as 10 missions. After NASA retired the space shuttle program in 2011, it has relied on others to get astronauts into space. Some astronauts have hitched a trip on Russian rockets. Then in 2020, SpaceX’s Dragon started transporting astronauts to the space station. Boeing’s Starliner can be an necessary backup to those space efforts.
But it surely’s been an extended highway to Boeing’s first crewed launch day. As Wendy Whitman Cobb of Air College wrote for The Conversation:
Starliner’s growth has include setbacks. Although Boeing obtained $4.2 billion from NASA, in contrast with $2.6 billion for SpaceX, Boeing spent greater than $1.5 billion further in growing the spacecraft.
On Starliner’s first uncrewed check flight in 2019, a sequence of software program and {hardware} failures prevented it from attending to its deliberate orbit in addition to docking with the Worldwide Area Station. After testing out a few of its techniques, it landed efficiently at White Sands Missile Vary in New Mexico.
In 2022, after figuring out and making greater than 80 fixes, Starliner carried out a second uncrewed check flight. This time, the car did efficiently dock with the Worldwide Area Station and landed six days later in New Mexico.
And one day, as space tourism will increase, Starliner could even play a job in taking you, or somebody you already know, into space.
Backside line: The first crewed Boeing Starliner is scheduled to launch to the Worldwide Area Station on Monday, Could 6, 2024. Watch a launch livestream right here!
