Boeing launched astronauts for the first time Wednesday, belatedly joining SpaceX as a second taxi service for NASA. Indian-origin NASA pilot Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore took off from Cape Canaveral on board the Starliner capsule. They will arrive at the International Space Station on Thursday and spend just over a week at the orbiting lab.
The Starliner’s crew debut occurred years later than expected due to restrictive spacecraft laws and comes at a time when Boeing is struggling with safety issues on its airplane side. Wednesday's launch was the third attempt with astronauts since early May, coming after two two separate rocket-related problems. A small helium leak in the spacecraft’s propulsion system also caused delays. However managers had decided the leak was manageable and not a safety issue.
“Let’s get going!” Wilmore called out a few minutes before liftoff.
Half an hour later, he and Williams were safely in orbit and giving chase to the space station. Back at Cape Canaveral, the relieved launch controllers stood and applauded. After all the trouble leading up to Wednesday's launch, including two scrapped countdowns, everything seemed to go smoothly before and during liftoff.
Crippled by bad software, Starliner’s initial test flight in 2019 without a crew had to be repeated before NASA would let its astronauts strap in. The 2022 do-over went much better, but parachute problems later cropped up and flammable tape had to be removed from the capsule.
Wilmore and Williams — retired Navy captains and former space station residents — stressed repeatedly before the launch that they had full confidence in Boeing’s ability to get it right with this test flight.
“I know it’s been a long road to get here,” NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said before the weekend delay.
(With inputs from agencies)
