Go For Launch
After Boeing’s Starliner capsule was mated atop the ULA Atlas V rocket, the pair rolled to Launch Complex 41 to await the much-anticipated moment of liftoff. As our Space Coast photographer, John Pisani, joined media to place cameras at the launchpad, the Boeing, ULA, and NASA teams entered the final phase of launch review and preparation.
The Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2) is set to take off at 6:54pm ET (22:54 UTC) on Thursday, May 19, 2022.
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After liftoff, the uncrewed spacecraft will autonomously rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station during a mission that will last up to 5 days. Upon undocking, Starliner will return to Earth for a ground-based landing in the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Providing everything goes well, a crewed test flight will occur later this year or early next year.
Once Starliner is approved for operational human flights, Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon will be the two spacecraft used to transport NASA astronauts to the ISS as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program. This program aims to usher in a new era of private-public partnerships that lowers costs and open access to space for NASA and its partner agencies, as well as private space travelers around the world.
Starliner’s first flight, OFT-1 occurred in December of 2019. During the flight, the Boeing team encountered software problems that caused them to abort the mission early and bring Starliner safely back to White Sands, New Mexico. The Boeing team proposed to NASA to repeat the same mission to showcase that software issues had been addressed. In August of 2021, during the first attempt to launch the OFT-2 mission, the Starliner team discovered valve problems that caused them to delay the launch to May 2022. Now, that much-anticipated launch day has arrived and, if successful, OFT-2 could be Starliner’s first successful rendevouz with the ISS.
Credit: John Pisani for Cosmic Perspective
