A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is delivered to the launch pad ahead of NASA’s Boeing crewed test flight scheduled for Saturday, June 1.
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The summer space travel season is already off to a tough start.
After years of delays, NASA is preparing to launch two astronauts to the International Space Station aboard a new spacecraft built by Boeing.
Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are scheduled to blast off to the International Space Station aboard the Boeing Starliner at 12:25 pm ET on Saturday, about a month after Starliner was originally scheduled to fly to the space station, but that launch has already been delayed by several years.
But in a development familiar to many air travelers here on Earth, astronauts’ luggage is being left behind. And the lost luggage isn’t Boeing’s fault: Earlier this week, the space station’s urine recycling system broke, and NASA had to make room to send in a new pump.
“We ultimately salvaged two crew suitcases containing clothing,” Dana Weigel, NASA’s International Space Station program manager, said at a press conference Friday.
Weigel said the space station has extra clothing and hygiene products that crew members can use during their stay.
Here’s what else you need to know about today’s launch:
This will be Starliner’s maiden flight.
In 2014, NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion contract to build the Starliner vehicle to transport astronauts on scheduled missions to the International Space Station.
The Starliner program has since fallen significantly behind schedule and over budget, with Boeing estimating the program has cost the company more than $1 billion in losses.
At the same time as signing the contract with Boeing, NASA also paid SpaceX $2.6 billion to develop the Dragon spacecraft, which conducted a crewed test flight in 2020 and now regularly transports astronauts to the station.
Starliner has been plagued by technical problems
Starliner failed to reach the ISS on its first mission in 2019 after a misconfiguration of the onboard clock caused the computer to start the capsule’s engines too early. During its second test flight in 2022, the spacecraft successfully reached the ISS despite some thrusters not working as planned.
Boeing postponed Starliner’s first crewed flight last year after company executives realized that hundreds of yards of wiring contained potentially flammable duct tape and that the capsule’s three parachutes were connected by wiring that appeared weaker than expected.
The most recent launch, on May 6, was canceled due to a clogged valve on the Starliner launch vehicle. That valve was replaced, but engineers also discovered a small helium leak in one of Starliner’s thrusters.
Engineers aren’t completely sure, but the leak is most likely due to a faulty seal, but after weeks of extensive analysis, they believe Starliner will be safe to fly even with the leak.
Today’s launch will be a major milestone
Despite all the issues, today’s launch is likely to be a major milestone for NASA and Boeing.
If the test is successful, it will pave the way for further Starliner flights and give NASA two independent private spacecraft capable of ferrying astronauts to the space station.
If all goes well, Starliner will dock with the space station and remain there for a little over a week while Williams and Wilmore perform a number of tests, before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and landing at one of several landing sites in the western US.
NPR’s Joe Hernandez contributed to this report.
