Boeing’s Starliner capsule is scheduled to launch astronauts for the first time ever on June 1 and you’ll be able to watch it live online.
Space fans will be glued to their screens for the historic liftoff, which will send NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams toward the International Space Station (ISS) atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. Launch is currently scheduled for 10:52 a.m EDT (1452 GMT) on Wednesday, June 5. You can watch it here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA and follow the mission with our Boeing Starliner live updates.
Starliner has had a long and bumpy road to the launch pad. Wednesday’s launch attempt comes nearly four weeks later than the original targeted May 6 liftoff. That attempt was scrubbed some two hours before launch after teams noticed an anomaly in an oxygen relief valve in the Atlas V’s Centaur upper stage. The Starliner-topped Atlas V was then rolled off the launch pad to a processing building, where the valve was replaced. While that work was being performed, a new issue cropped up: a slight helium leak in a thruster in Starliner’s service module.
The most recent launch attempt on June 1 was aborted with just minutes left in the countdown due to a computer issue in ground launch sequence equipment.
Boeing’s Starliner capsule is scheduled to launch astronauts for the first time ever today (June 1) after weeks of delays and you’ll be able to watch it live online.
Space fans will be glued to their screens for the historic liftoff, which will send NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams toward the International Space Station (ISS) atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. Launch is currently scheduled for 10:52 a.m EDT (1452 GMT) on Wednesday, June 5. You can watch it here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA.
Starliner has had a long and bumpy road to the launch pad. Saturday’s launch attempt comes nearly four weeks later than the original targeted May 6 liftoff. That attempt was scrubbed some two hours before launch after teams noticed an anomaly in an oxygen relief valve in the Atlas V’s Centaur upper stage. The Starliner-topped Atlas V was then rolled off the launch pad to a processing building, where the valve was replaced. While that work was being performed, a new issue cropped up: a slight helium leak in a thruster in Starliner’s service module.
But those issues have been worked out, and Starliner has been cleared for lift off, according to mission teams.
Launch day! CFT is scheduled to lift off on 10:52 a.m EDT (1452 GMT) on Wednesday, June 5, but the livestream action will start about four hours earlier at 6:45 a.m. (1045 GMT).
The NASA livestream coverage will continue long past launch, all the way through Starliner’s docking with the ISS and beyond.
The following events are of particular interest (but note that the given times are tentative and could change):
A post-launch press conference is expected to start on Wednesday (June 5) at approximately 12:30 p.m. EDT (1430 GMT) on June 5 , with the following participants:
- NASA Administrator Bill Nelson
- Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
- Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
- Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
- Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Commercial Crew Program, Boeing
- Tory Bruno, president and CEO, ULA
- June 6 is CFT docking day. Starliner is expected to arrive at the ISS at 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT) on June 6. Coverage of docking will begin at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT), and you can watch it live here courtesy of NASA.
The hatches between the two craft will open after docking, and astronauts aboard the orbiting lab will deliver welcome remarks around 3:55 p.m. EDT (1955 GMT)
Following that, NASA will host a post-docking news conference at Johnson Space Center in Houston at 2 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT), with the following participants:
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- NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
- Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
- Jeff Arend, manager for systems engineering and integration, NASA’s International Space Station Office
- Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Commercial Crew Program, Boeing
Starliner will spend about 10 days docked to the ISS before coming back home to Earth. There will doubtless be further coverage of the CFT mission beyond these launch- and arrival-oriented events, so stay tuned!
- The action started on Wednesday (May 1) at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT), when NASA held a press conference with Wilmore and Williams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, which is next door to CFT’s launch site, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
“It almost feels unreal,” Williams, who will serve as the mission pilot, said during the livestreamed event, which was conducted remotely while the astronauts were under quarantine ahead of their impending mission. “I don’t think either one of us ever dreamed that we’d be associated with the first flight of a brand-new spacecraft.”
- NASA officials and Starliner program leadership held a preflight press conference at KSC on Friday (May 3) to announce that all team members polled ‘go’ for launch on May 6.
During opening remarks, NASA administrator Bill Nelson stressed the historical importance of a spacecraft’s first crew test flight. “The first time humans have flown on a new spacecraft started with Mercury, then with Gemini, then with Apollo, the space shuttle, then Dragon and now Starliner,” Nelson said.
“Oh by the way, one other historical fact is this is the first time since the Apollo 7 launch that a human astronaut launch is actually on what used to be the Air Force’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and now is of course, Cape Canaveral Space Force station,” Nelson added.
Source: https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-cft-launch-webcasts
