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The spacecraft made its first connection with the International Space Station's (ISS) Harmony module at 8:28 p.m. EDT. Boeing said that – in addition to ground controllers in Houston – astronauts on the space station monitored Starliner throughout the flight and sometimes commanded the spacecraft to verify control capabilities. The Starliner launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:54 p.m. ET on Thursday. While docked, the crew of the station will float inside the Starliner, conduct an initial cabin tour and periodically perform system checkouts while ground controllers evaluate data...

In preparation for this second attempt at OFT-2, the Starliner capsule is currently sitting atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, which is scheduled to launch from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:54 p.m. EDT on Thursday, May 19. Should all go as planned, the uncrewed CST-100 will dock at the International Space Station on Friday, May 20 at 7:10 p.m. EDT. Starliner OFT-2 is packed with around 500 pounds of cargo (mostly food), and the plan is to return 600 pounds of cargo back to Earth. Recent precedent being what it is, this...

...two months after it first discovered an issue with some of the valves in the spacecraft’s service module, the company still doesn’t know with 100 percent certainty what caused 13 of those valves to remain shut when they should have been open... ...the company might even have to swap out the spacecraft’s service module for a new one... “We got very close to launch without having identified the valve problem,” said George Nield, a panel member who previously oversaw the Federal Aviation Administration’s office of commercial space transportation. “Are there any changes to hardware inspection, testing, vehicle processing or checkout...

Over the weekend, engineers were able to open seven of those valves and restore them to working order, the company said, and it is still hopeful that it could launch the test flight by the end of the month. But Boeing still does not know what caused the problem, which forced yet another delay in a program that has been plagued by serious issues for years. Boeing is developing Starliner under a contract with NASA to fly the space agency’s astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the other company that holds the “commercial crew” contract,...

Liftoff is at 1:35 p.m. EDT (1735 GMT) Designated Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit Flight 5 (SBIRS Geo-5), the mission marks ULA's first launch so far this year. However, the company has a busy summer planned, including the launch of Boeing's Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station. That mission, called OFT-2, will be the spacecraft's second uncrewed orbital flight test. The first, which occurred in Dec. 2019, failed to reach the space station due to a software issue. Following a successful second flight test, Boeing will launch its first crew of astronauts later this year. Weather...

After saying for weeks the spacecraft and systems performed “as designed” after recovering from a Mission Elapsed Timer issue just 31 minutes after launch and point-blank saying that no other anomalies occurred on the mission, Boeing and NASA have now admitted that two more serious issues — one of which could have led to the Loss Of Vehicle — occurred during Starliner’s first mission.

The new software issue was discovered during the Starliner's flight, according to panel member Paul Hill. A software fix was made just hours before the capsule returned. "While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone uncorrected, it would have led to erroneous thruster firings and uncontrolled motion during [service module] separation for deorbit, with the potential for a catastrophic spacecraft failure," he said, according to Space News. In a blog post Friday, NASA said its investigation with Boeing has found 11 "top-priority corrective actions" so far with more to be identified. "There were numerous instances where the...

Over 50 years after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) landed the first humans on the Moon, the beleaguered agency can’t even pull off basic landings at the International Space Station (ISS) in Earth’s orbit. On Dec.20, 2019, the agency debuted the delayed, over-budget Starliner capsule for a test-run to and from ISS before being deemed ready for ferrying astronauts. But the Boeing-built aircraft couldn’t even dock in the space station due to a system error, instead pointlessly orbiting Earth before landing in New Mexico on Dec. 22. Taxpayers deserve better than billions of dollars of their hard-earned money...

Boeing's spacecraft landed safely at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range at 7:58AM Eastern, making it the first US-made, crew-ready capsule to touch down on solid ground. Previous capsules from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs all landed in the sea. Boeing and NASA said during the briefing that they still expected a crewed flight in 2020, but that they wanted to review data before deciding the next course of action. There are still more dry runs to go, including an in-flight abort test to complement the launch abort test from November. While NASA is eager to reduce its dependence...

Boeing's Starliner astronaut taxi suffered an anomaly today (Dec. 20) during its flight to the International Space Station during the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission. About 90 minutes after blastoff, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter that the capsule will not be able to reach the space station because it burned too much fuel during the anomaly. The Atlas V rocket from United Launch Alliance successfully launched from Space Launch Complex 41 here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:36 a.m. EST (1136 GMT) as planned. But, as of about an hour after launch, the mission...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K82CRHDT1wc

United Launch Alliance’s countdown is underway in preparation for liftoff of an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Friday at 6:36 a.m. EST (1136 GMT) with Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule on an unpiloted Orbital Flight Test to the International Space Station.

Now the capsule will be mated on top of the rocket that will take it to space — an Atlas V manufactured by the United Launch Alliance. On December 17th, the rocket and capsule are slated to take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida — without any crew members on board — and then dock with the International Space Station. If successful, this demonstration mission could pave the way for NASA astronauts to fly on the Starliner sometime next year. Boeing has been developing the Starliner spacecraft for NASA as part of the space agency’s Commercial Crew program, an initiative to...

WASHINGTON — Boeing confirmed April 2 it will delay the uncrewed test flight of its commercial crew vehicle, citing a tight schedule and conflicts with another launch. In a statement to SpaceNews, Boeing said the first flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, called the Orbital Flight Test, is now scheduled for August on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. That launch had been scheduled for this spring. In the statement, Boeing said it had entered the “final phases of production” of the Starliner that will fly that uncrewed test flight. “Our Starliner team continues to press...

One of the key differences between the two is that SpaceX was awarded $2.6 billion, while Boeing receiving $4.2 billion. SpaceX completed a pad abort test in 2015, while Boeing hopes to be able to achieve this milestone possibly this year. Boeing's abort test had been scheduled for this summer, but it was delayed due to a leak of highly-toxic hydrazine from one of the abort engines. The leak occurred after the command was issued to shut down the engines. Several of the abort engine valves failed to fully close. As early as July 11, 2018, NASA internally believed (as...

The NASA manager overseeing development of Boeing and SpaceX’s commercial crew ferry ships says the space agency has approved SpaceX’s proposal to strap in astronauts atop Falcon 9 rockets, then fuel the launchers in the final hour of the countdown as the company does for its uncrewed missions. The “load-and-go” procedure has become standard for SpaceX’s satellite launches, in which an automatic countdown sequencer commands chilled kerosene and cryogenic liquid oxygen to flow into the Falcon 9 rocket in the final minutes before liftoff. “From a program standpoint, we went throgh a pretty extensive process where we laid out the...

A former Naval Academy soccer star who led her squad to an undefeated league season has been named to another team that goes above and beyond. NASA announced Friday that it had assigned Marine Corps Lt. Col. Nicole Mann to a new crew of astronauts who will fly a privately developed spaceship, marking a return of U.S.-manned space flight after the shuttle program ended in 2011. Since then, Americans have relied on Russian spacecraft for space travel. Mann will be a part of a three-person crew to fly Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on a mid-2019 mission, the spacecraft’s first manned flight....

Boeing confirmed July 21 that there was an "anomaly" during a recent test of the launch abort engines for its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle that could delay a key milestone needed for the vehicle to be able carry astronauts. The incident happened during a hot-fire test of the engines used by Starliner's abort system, integrated into a spacecraft service module. The static test, which took place in June at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, was a prelude to a pad abort test of the system planned for later this summer. "The engines successfully ignited and ran...