2 NASA Astronauts Arrive To Serve As Test Pilots for Boeing’s Starliner Capsule a Week Before Its Mission Launch

The two NASA astronauts who were test pilots for the Boeing Starliner capsule arrived at the launch site on Thursday. Their arrival happened just over a week before the mission launch.

NASA Pilots Arrive Week Before Boeing's Starliner Launch

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams would act as test pilots for the Starliner capsule made by Boeing, which is now making its crewed debut after years of delay. On Thursday, they exited Houston and landed at Kennedy Space Center.

The Starliner is scheduled to launch on May 6 on an Atlas rocket and arrive at the International Space Station for a seven-day checkout trip. Boeing is attempting to overtake SpaceX, which has been launching humans on behalf of NASA since 2020.

No one was onboard Boeing's two prior Starliner test flights. Due to software and other issues, the first attempt to reach the space station in 2019 was unsuccessful. Boeing conducted the demo again in 2022. More recently, the capsule had to have its flammable tape removed and parachute problems fixed.

Wilmore emphasized that this test flight aimed to find any problems they could have missed.

"Do we expect it to go perfectly? This is the first human flight of the spacecraft," he told reporters. "I'm sure we'll find things out. That's why we do this."

A decade ago, NASA paid billions of dollars to SpaceX and Boeing to have them transport astronauts to and from the space station. Even though the space station will be decommissioned by 2030, the space agency is still eager to have capsules from two rival businesses for its astronauts.

Wilmore and Williams will be the first astronauts since NASA's Project Mercury in the early 1960s to board an Atlas rocket.

Boeing's Starliner Spacecraft Will Proceed

NASA and Boeing held a flight readiness review (FRR for the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission. NASA confirmed today (April 25) that CFT is set to launch on May 6 as previously scheduled, as the FRR results showed no significant problems.

"I can say with confidence that the teams have absolutely done their due diligence," NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said during a call with reporters this afternoon. "There's still a little bit of closeout work to do, but we are on track for launch at 10:34 [p.m.] Eastern Daylight Time on Monday, May 6."

Though the capsule has flown twice, Starliner has not yet completed any crewed flights. December 2019 saw the spacecraft's first launch onto the ISS for an uncrewed test flight.

Not everything went as planned, though, as Starliner had many issues soon after takeoff, leaving it stuck in an orbit too low to make a rendezvous with the station. The route to the pad for Starliner's first astronaut flight has been rocky. Still, the spacecraft met the orbiting laboratory in May 2022 after a successful second try at an unmanned ISS voyage.

NASA and Boeing had scheduled the launch of CFT for July 2023. However, before liftoff, engineers found several problems with Starliner, including difficulty with the suspension lines on the main parachutes and the fact that a large portion of the capsule's wiring was covered in flammable tape.

CFT's launch date was pushed back to mid-April to address those issues and test the modifications. A further slip in quite heavy ISS activity brought Starliner closer to its planned launch date of May 6.

NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) manager, Steve Stich, said the launch teams are still resolving a few concerns. For example, they are examining backup plans for removing Starliner's forward heat shield upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere and changing a valve at the launch pad.

Nevertheless, Stich stated during today's media call that neither problem is anticipated to result in further delay.

Check out more news and information on the SPACE in Science Times.