NASA and Boeing conduct flight tests of the manned Starliner spacecraft to the space station

Merritt Island, Florida. NASA and Boeing held a teleconference Friday to discuss the upcoming flight test of the Starliner spacecraft, the last such mission planned before the capsule is certified for crew rotation to the International Space Station.

A conference call featuring NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stitch, Boeing Commercial Crew Program Vice President and Program Manager Mark Nappi and Jeff Arend, NASA International Space Station Program Systems Engineering and Integration Program Manager, opened the conference with Stitch’s promise that no big announcements are bound to happen. made, only some updates on the progress of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT).

“We are all very excited about the opportunity to launch Starliner to have another crew transfer system for one of the two certified transportation systems and a space station human sized system, so this is an exciting time for us and I know the crew is very excited about this. ‘ Stitch said.

With the Crew-6 mission still set to launch no earlier than Feb. 26, Stitch said the window for CFT would likely be open from early to mid-April.

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“Again, we’re not rushing this flight, we’re going through it methodically, just like we did our first demo mission for the Dragon spacecraft, Demo-2; we had a lot of validation and certification work actually being worked on in the same time frame for this flight, so I would say that when comparing the Starliner to the Dragon, they really are no different. NASA and Boeing are working together to complete all this certification and review work, and this is actually the last piece to say the vehicle is mission-ready and has received a human rating for that mission,” Stich said.

The CFT will include the launch of the Starliner spacecraft aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from the Space Force Station at Cape Canaveral. Originally scheduled for February and then pushed back to April at the earliest, the mission will take NASA test pilots Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suny Williams to the ISS and then land them about eight days later in White Sands, New Mexico, proving what spaceship capabilities.

Arend commented on the upcoming arrival of the astronauts, welcoming Wilmore and Williams on behalf of the ISS crew and its ground operators.

“We are delighted to have Butch and Suni aboard the Starliner for their eight day mission. Both Suni and Butch have a wealth of experience in their careers and would make excellent additions to the crew aboard the station. During their time on the station, they will be busy doing science technology demonstrations, outreach and commercial activities, and it’s just a big deal for us because we’re moving from seven crew members to nine crew members, and just having more hands on board really helps us. . complete our mission,” Arend said.

Following a successful flight to the ISS, NASA and Boeing’s next step will be to complete the final Starliner certification process for crew rotation missions to the space station.

Nappi said Wilmore and Williams will take part in testing the crew interface next week to get to know the Starliner better. Following a two-part test, the second part of which is scheduled for early March, including cargo loading, the spacecraft will be loaded with propellant, which is said to be a major step that will give NASA and Boeing the clearest possible launch date.

“We will determine, you know, our vision of how the projects come together and when we think our launch date will look like, and that is also based on some ISS traffic, and we will determine whether or not we want to upload simulations. crewed operational failure scenarios,” Nappi said. “… All this work … not all, but most of this work is already behind, it was very successful.”

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