Boeing and NASA launched the company’s Starliner astronaut taxi on a crucial uncrewed mission to the International Space Station on May 19.
The mission, known as Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. OFT-2 was originally supposed to fly in August 2021, but an issue with some valves in Starliner’s propulsion system pushed things back more than eight months.
This is Boeing’s second time launching Starliner on an uncrewed test flight; the first mission, OFT-1, returned to Earth early after it failed to reach the space station in December 2019. NASA conducted major reviews of the Starliner program and identified a total of 80 corrective actions that Boeing needed to take before Starliner could return to flight.
If all goes according to plan, Starliner will dock with the International Space Station about 24 hours after it launches, and it will return to Earth in late May with a parachute-assisted landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
https://www.space.com/news/live/boeing-starliner-oft-2-live-updates
Comment: Damn! I didn’t know it was launching today.
TTG
Well after all this time it’s nice to see Boeing can finally get it up. I bet Elon is surprised too.
Competition is good.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin have a lot of congress critters in their pockets and that it the only way they are still in the game. They are still becoming more and more irrelevant by the day. There is a big difference between recycled old technology and what is being developed today by the likes of SpaceX. The only thing that matters is when the Congress will stop wasting the tax payers money and as we know that can take a very long time.