NASA is getting ready to conduct their first manned test flight of their new Starliner line of spacecraft this May.
Veteran astronauts Commander Barry Wilmore and Pilot Suni Williams will be the first to test pilot the craft. According to Commander Wilmore, the launch will charter them to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 1 at the latest. This is coming after last year’s delay for the launch over reported safety concerns.
“Bringing along our second human rating vehicle in the period of four years has been a tremendous honor for our commercial crew team and a tremendous challenge of just getting through all the work to get these two spacecraft, Dragon and Starliner, flying,” NASA Program Manager Steve Stich said in a press conference for the upcoming launch.
According to Stich, the results of this flight could make or break the possibility for a future manned launch of the Starliner for November 2024.
A collaborative effort between NASA and the Boeing company as part of the former’s Commercial Crew Program, the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner was designed to ferry a crew of up to seven people for missions to a low-Earth orbit. According to Mark Nappi, Boeing Vice President and the manager for the Starliner program, the company is looking to prioritize their contract with NASA over implementing the craft for commercial or tourist usage.
According to Boeing, the CST-100 Starliner’s streamlined design was designed to incorporate tried-and-true architectural design and subsystem technologies with the innovations and improvements made in aeronautic design this century. It is stated to incorporate a new weldless design meant to circumvent structural risks associated with welding, reduce its mass and streamline production.
This upcoming launch is meant to cap off a development cycle that has gone on since the failed unmanned launch of a prototype model back in 2019 to the ISS. The craft itself was safely recovered and returned to Earth. It was reported by NASA staff at the time that too much fuel had been burnt during the test launch, prompting a lengthy series of revisions for Boeing to make before the proper launch this May. Despite this, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine stated that the error would not have resulted in any injuries or fatalities were it to have been a manned test flight.
The next unmanned test in 2021 was also met with setbacks, as the shuttle itself failed to launch due to stuck valves on the spacecraft.
Despite this earlier—and costly—series of setbacks, a successful launch of an unmanned Starliner was accomplished in October 2022, successfully managing to dock with the ISS, showing a significant level of progression from their earlier efforts. These delays have caused the company significant financial loss in their attempt to play catchup with rival company SpaceX, resulting in an estimated $883 million dollar loss over the past few years.
Still, NASA and Boeing staff are looking to this upcoming launch with optimism, eager to open a new chapter in the world of aerospace travel.
