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NASA reveals target date for first crewed Starliner flight

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Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Boeing / Boeing

NASA and Boeing are making the final preparations for the long-awaited and much-delayed maiden crewed flight of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.

A message posted on NASA’s website on Monday said the launch team is targeting “no earlier than Monday, May 6” for liftoff atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Flying on board the Starliner will be NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. The pair will head to the International Space Station (ISS) and spend about 10 days there, living and working alongside the orbital outpost’s other crewmembers.

While the Starliner project has faced many technical issues and subsequent delays since 2019, the most recent target date for launch has been determined to a large extent by ISS operations, with the time around now particularly busy for spacecraft comings and goings. Ahead of Starliner’s launch, for example, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 crewmembers will board the Dragon spacecraft and relocate it to another ISS port to make way for the incoming Starliner.

Boeing, which built the Starliner, is also performing prelaunch closeout work and completing final certification for flight.

The first crewed flight test of Starliner will help NASA verify whether the spacecraft system is ready to fly regular crew rotation missions to the space station. Up to now, the Starliner has been on an uncrewed test flight that failed to reach the ISS and another that managed to dock with the ISS before returning home safely.

The Starliner project is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and the aim is for the spacecraft to provide NASA with another human transportation system alongside SpaceX’s spaceflight system, which has been using the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS since 2020.

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Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft Boeing / Boeing

NASA and Boeing Space are a short time away from conducting the first crewed launch of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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NASA has completed its readiness review of the Boeing Starliner, a new spacecraft designed to carry astronauts from Earth to the International Space Station (ISS) and back. With the first crewed test flight of the Starliner less than two weeks away, NASA has given the go-ahead for the launch. If successful, the Starliner will join the SpaceX Crew Dragon as the first American spacecraft to carry astronauts since the Space Shuttle.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida today, Thursday April 25, in time to prepare for the first launch of the Starliner in around a week-and-a-half. Arriving in a T-38 jet, Wilmore and Williams said they were excited to be in Florida and for the launch date to arrive.

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The official crew portrait for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. From left are Suni Williams, who will serve as the pilot, and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, spacecraft commander. NASA

After numerous delays across many years, NASA is closer than ever to launching its first astronauts aboard the Boeing-made CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.

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