Boeing Starliner launch: Astronauts ready for historic first crewed mission
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - On Monday night, if all goes well, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will be making history as the first NASA astronauts to crew a Starliner mission.
Space fan Jayden Lowe said watching the launch would be a special experience. "Rockets are very cool, and this is why people come to Florida."
Manned missions like this are rare. NASA has only flown a new crew transportation spacecraft six times in its history: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the space shuttle, Dragon, and now Starliner.
"What that means is, if they're successful, with all the trials and tribulations they've gone through, they'll be certified. What that means is we'll have two vehicles we can use to get to low earth orbit and the International Space Station," said space expert David Denault, "that redundancy we've never had before."
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES - APRIL 25: NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the crew of Boeings CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, pose after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center ahead of their launch to the International Space Sta
Wilmore and Williams will be part of human research studies on the physiological impacts of space flight. They’ll also be carrying some hardware up for future studies. Because this is a test flight, researchers will pay extra attention to how all the systems are working.
"I'm sure we'll learn something on orbit and learn something during the flight, but our team is checking, double checking everything and making sure we're really ready to go," said Steve Stitch, Manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
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Denault said this would be a critical moment for Starliner manufacturer, Boeing. "For Boeing, this is very important to have a success after ten years of development and the three years of setbacks that they've experienced, so this is critical in their mission to get to space."
Launch time is set for Monday, May 6, at 10:34 p.m. It will take them about 26 hours to reach the International Space Station (ISS), and then they're going to stay aboard for about a week.
Space fan Linda Roode, visiting from Ohio, said she’ll be hoping everything goes well. "I think it's exciting. You know, it's dangerous and hope for their safety. It's really cool to watch, I think everybody should."