{"id":12765,"date":"2019-12-18T01:50:33","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T17:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-boeing-clear-starliner-for-friday-launch\/"},"modified":"2019-12-18T01:50:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T17:50:33","slug":"nasa-boeing-clear-starliner-for-friday-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-boeing-clear-starliner-for-friday-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA, Boeing clear Starliner for Friday launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boeing\u2019s Starliner capsule, carrying an instrumented astronaut test dummy nicknamed \u201cRosie,\u201d is on track for launch Friday on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station, mission managers said Tuesday. The flight is a major milestone in NASA\u2019s push to resume launching U.S. crews from American soil.<\/p>\n

The CST-100 Starliner, perched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, is scheduled for liftoff from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:36 a.m. EST Friday. Forecasters are predicting an 80 percent chance of acceptable if windy weather in the wake of a cold front.<\/p>\n

Assuming an on-time launch, the capsule will catch up with the lab complex early Saturday, moving in for a docking at the station\u2019s forward port around 8:27 a.m. Along with giving Rosie a lift, the Starliner will deliver about 600 pounds of food, clothing and equipment, along with a selection of holiday gifts for the lab\u2019s crew.<\/p>\n

The flight plan calls for the Starliner to remain docked over Christmas, returning to Earth on Dec. 28 with a pre-dawn parachute and airbag-assisted landing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are actually tracking no spacecraft anomalies right now,\u201d John Mulholland, Boeing\u2019s Starliner program manager, said after a launch readiness review Tuesday. \u201cThe spacecraft is in really good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

So is the Atlas 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United Launch Alliance team is just thrilled to be a part of this,\u201d said John Elbon, ULA\u2019s chief operating officer. \u201cWe\u2019ve launched a lot of important payloads \u2026 but there\u2019s just something special about launching humans, and to be a part of the program that\u2019s going tp do that is a really big deal for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time an Atlas rocket launched an astronaut was in 1963 when Gordon Cooper climbed into orbit aboard his \u201cFaith 7\u201d Mercury capsule.<\/p>\n

As with the Starliner, \u201cwe\u2019re tracking no significant issues with the launch vehicle,\u201d Elbon said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to Friday morning and hearing the words \u2018go Atlas, go Centaur, go Starliner!\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the space shuttle\u2019s retirement in 2011, NASA has been forced to buy seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry U.S. and partner astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Seats on recent missions have cost more than $80 million each and since 2006, NASA has spent $3.9 billion for 70 Soyuz \u201ctickets.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2014, after a series of competitions, NASA announced that Boeing and SpaceX would share $6.8 billion to develop independent space taxis, the first new U.S. crewed spacecraft since the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Under a $2.6 billion contract, SpaceX is building a crewed version of its Dragon cargo ship that will ride into orbit atop the company\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket. Boeing\u2019s Starliner is being developed under a $4.2 billion contract.<\/p>\n

Both companies have been delayed by funding shortfalls in Congress and by a series of technical issues, including trouble with parachutes and emergency abort systems.<\/p>\n

SpaceX carried out a successful unpiloted flight to the space station in March but suffered a major setback in April when that same Crew Dragon capsule was destroyed during a ground test. The California rocket builder has recovered from that incident and is preparing for a dramatic in-flight abort test in the next several weeks.<\/p>\n

If that test goes well, SpaceX will press ahead for launch of a crew Dragon carrying two NASA astronauts \u2014 Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken \u2014 on a long-awaited piloted test flight to clear the way for operational crew rotation missions.<\/p>\n

In a similar fashion, Boeing\u2019s unpiloted test flight this week is one of the company\u2019s final hurdles before it can launch a three-person crew \u2014 Boeing executive and former shuttle commander Chris Ferguson, veteran NASA astronaut Mike Fincke and rookie Nicole Mann \u2014 on their own test flight.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not yet known which company will make it to the finish line first, but SpaceX would appear to have the edge because the Atlas 5 has multiple launches on its early 2020 manifest, including a high-priority science mission in February followed by two military flights in March and April.<\/p>\n

SpaceX operates two launch pads in Florida, giving it more scheduling flexibility. But multiple reviews will be required before either company is cleared to carry astronauts, and no launch date decisions have been made.<\/p>\n

But NASA needs one or both companies to fly soon. The last currently-contracted seat aboard a Soyuz will be used by astronaut Chris Cassidy in April.<\/p>\n

The agency is negotiating with the Russian space agency Roscosmos to buy two more seats to protect against the possibility of additional delays in NASA\u2019s commercial crew program, but no final decisions have been made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Credit: Stephen Clark\/Spaceflight Now Boeing\u2019s Starliner capsule, carrying an instrumented astronaut test dummy nicknamed \u201cRosie,\u201d is on track for launch Friday on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station, mission managers said Tuesday. The flight is a major milestone in NASA\u2019s push to resume launching U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[724,2181,670,524,291,1708,1565,2111],"class_list":["post-12765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-atlas-5","tag-av-080","tag-boeing","tag-commercial-crew","tag-commercial-space","tag-complex-41","tag-cst-100","tag-cst-100-starliner-orbital-flight-test"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}