BOEING’S space taxi docked with the International Space Station, bringing the spacecraft’s first two passengers to the orbiting laboratory as part of a critical flight test for Nasa.
Nasa astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore entered the International Space Station smiling and cheering at 3.46 pm Florida time on Thursday (Jun 6). The docking process had been delayed earlier in the day when five thrusters used to help the craft manoeuvre in space failed. But Boeing and Nasa were able to troubleshoot and bring four of them back online.
After Boeing’s CST-Starliner docked with the space station, Wilmore said it was “nice to be attached to the big city in the sky”.
This mission, in which Starliner carried astronauts to space for the first time on an Atlas V rocket operated by the United Launch Alliance, was an important test for Boeing.
Its Starliner has suffered numerous delays and setbacks that pushed this test run back by seven years. And it comes at a time when its plane manufacturing procedures have been under sharp scrutiny since the start of this year, when a door flew off of a nearly new 737 Max 9 mid-flight.
Boeing shares pared earlier loses to gain 0.6 per cent at 3.49 pm in New York.
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Williams and Wilmore, who are joining seven other people currently on board the space station, will stay for about a week. During that time, they will unload cargo and practice procedures that future astronauts will use when flying to the space station on Starliner for long-term stays.
Once finished, they will load back into Starliner for the journey home, another critical test the spacecraft needs to ace for this mission. Starliner is meant to keep the astronauts safe while plunging through Earth’s atmosphere. It will ultimately land in the southwestern US underneath parachutes.
Boeing was forced to perform two uncrewed test flights of Starliner after its first mission in 2019 failed to reach the ISS as planned.
The company has also dealt with corroded valves, parachute issues, flammable tape and other problems that pushed back the first crewed test flight. A last-minute helium leak delayed this launch date by roughly a month. That leak and others that emerged during flight have persisted and continue to be evaluated by Nasa.
Nasa will use the data from this flight to determine if Starliner is ready to regularly transport the agency’s astronauts to and from the ISS for six-month-long stays. If approved, Boeing will share that responsibility with Nasa’s other commercial partner, SpaceX, which since 2020 has been taking crews to the space station on its Crew Dragon.
Earlier Thursday, SpaceX’s giant Starship completed goals in its fourth test flight: Its Super Heavy booster touched down softly in the Gulf of Mexico, and its rocket was able to land mostly intact in the Indian Ocean. BLOOMBERG
