Watch Live: Boeing’s Starliner set for launch this morning on historic 1st human spaceflight
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — A pair of NASA astronauts have taken the ride back to the launch pad awaiting what they hope will be a historic ride this morning on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner making its first-ever human spaceflight.
Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams are back for a third time in a month once again taking a ride out to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 to climb on board the spacecraft sitting atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket aiming for liftoff at 10:52 a.m. to take the pair to the International Space Station.
“Third time’s the charm,” said NASA astronaut Mike Fincke during NASA’s live broadcast. “Beautiful day outside, the rocket’s ready the crew’s getting suited up. This is an awesome day.”
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 90% chance for good conditions.
The pair look to launch on the Crew Flight Test, a followup to two uncrewed test flights, the first of which came in 2019. That mission was a partial failure as it was not able to rendezvous with the International Space Station forcing a 2 1/2-year delay to Boeing’s program to remedy hardware, software and management issues. The second uncrewed test flight in 2022 made it to the ISS, but post-launch review and preparation for the CFT brought further delays with more hardware issues popping up.