Liftoff of the Starliner CST-100 spacecraft is scheduled for May 6and its going to be a true nail-biter.
Boeings Crewed Flight Test(CFT) will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS.
ET on Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
An illustration of the Starliner crew ship in orbit.Illustration: Boeing
Boeing has yet to meet the end of its$4.3 billionCommercial Crew Programcontract with NASA.
The company has fallen behind schedule and its last two test flights were marred by glitches.
In brief, its a hot mess.
Lets take a look back at how this inaugural crewed test flight came to be.
At the time the contracts were handed out, Boeing was a much stronger contender in the aerospace industry.
The spacecraft measures 14.8 feet (4.5 meters) across and can fit up to seven astronauts.
Starliner miscalculated its location in space due to a glitch sparked by a faulty mission elapsed timer.
The spacecrafts failure prompted aninvestigation by an independent NASA-Boeing review team, which resulted in a 28-month delay.
OFT-2 set the stage for the first crewed test of Starliner.
By that point,Boeings losses for the Starliner program had reached a staggering $1.1 billion.
Engineers had to literally pull a mile of this flammable tape from the vehicle.
Do we expect it to go perfectly?
CFT astronaut Wilmore said during a press conference last week.
This is the first human flight of the spacecraft, Im sure well find things out.
Thats why we do this.
Well be anxiously awaiting the launch and subsequent docking of Starliner next week.
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