Boeing Starliner spacecraft prepared for first manned space mission | Space

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft received the “green light” for its first manned space mission, scheduled for the early hours of next Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida (USA), bound for the International Space Station (ISS). ).

The information was released this Friday by NASA and the North American aircraft manufacturer. The head of the North American space agency’s commercial crew program, Steve Stich, highlighted that the mission’s final preparatory reviews were positive and the spacecraft obtained final authorization for its journey.

The capsule will go into space on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, taking off from Cape Canaveral at 10:34 pm on Monday in the United States (3:34 am Lisbon), with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board.

“We will have a whole new adventure. This is an important part of our space exploration and what I call the ‘golden age of space exploration'”, said NASA chief Bill Nelson this Friday.

The success of this mission will mean that NASA will have a second supplier, after SpaceX, to transport manned missions and cargo to the space laboratory, following contracts signed with the two companies in 2014.

“We have strived for the commercial team to have two independent space transport systems”, he highlighted Steve Stitch.

Reusable capsule

If it takes off successfully, the spacecraft will arrive at the ISS on Wednesday and its two crew members will remain at the station for about a week, before returning to the Southwest United States, via a parachute system.

Last year, problems detected in the parachute system forced the mission to be postponed with a month and a half to go before takeoff, scheduled for July 21st.

Boeing successfully launched an unmanned mission on May 19, 2022, which docked at the ISS the following day, where the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft remained for four days before autonomously separating to land in New Mexico, in the United States. U.S.

The capsule, five meters high and 4.6 meters in diameter, is reusable (with a limit of up to ten uses) and has a maximum capacity of seven people, although manned missions commissioned by NASA under this program normally have four or five passengers.