Boeing Starliner spacecraft cleared for first manned space mission to the ISS

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft received the ‘green light’ for the first manned space mission, scheduled for the early hours of next Monday from Cape Canaveral, Florida (USA), heading to the International Space Station ( ISS).

The information was provided this Friday by NASA and the North American aircraft manufacturer. The head of the North American space agency’s commercial crew program, Steve Stich, indicated that the mission’s final readiness reviews were positive and that the spacecraft received final approval for its journey.

The capsule powered by United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V rocket will lift off from a platform in Cape Canaveral at 22:34 Monday (03:34 Lisbon), with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board.

“We will have a whole new adventure. This is an important part of our space exploration and what I call the ‘Gold Age of Space Exploration'”, said the head of NASA, Bill Nelson, this Friday.

The success of this mission will mean that NASA will have a second supplier, after SpaceX, to carry manned missions and cargo to the space laboratory, following contracts signed by the two companies in 2014.

“We are committed to having the commercial crew have two independent space transportation systems,” Stich said.

If the launch is successful, the spacecraft will arrive at the ISS on Wednesday and the two crew members will remain at the station for about a week, before returning to the southwestern United States via the improved Starliner parachute system.

Last year, problems found in the parachute system and in some fiberglass ribbons forced the mission to be canceled with a month and a half to go before its takeoff, scheduled for July 21.

Boeing successfully completed the unmanned OFT 2 mission on May 19, 2022, which ended the next day with the ISS, where the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft remained for four days before separating to independent and then landed in New Mexico (USA).

The capsule, 5 meters high and 4.6 meters in diameter, is reusable (with a limit of up to 10 uses) and has a maximum capacity of seven people, although there will be four or five passengers manned missions commissioned by NASA under this program.