Joey Roulette

CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) – Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule is nearing a rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday. This comes a day after it successfully launched on a much-anticipated do-over flight that was conducted without any astronauts.

CST100 Starliner in gumdrop shape was expected to reach the station at 7:10 pm EDT (2310 GMT). It would dock with orbital research satellite 24 hours following liftoff from Cape Canaveral U.S. Space Force Base, Florida.

The Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance provided the Atlas V rocket that lifted the capsule to orbit. Starliner was able to reach its preliminary orbit 31 minutes after it failed two of the onboard thrusters.

NASA representatives met with Boeing engineers on Friday to approve Starliner’s approach towards the station. The company stated that the failed thrusters did not pose a risk to other spaceflights.

Boeing stated that Starliner’s thermal control system was detecting unusual behavior, and that Boeing is monitoring the situation. However, it said that temperatures in the capsule remained constant.

On a NASA live webcast, Steve Siceloff from Boeing said that “this is part of the learning process to operate Starliner into orbit.”

Success of the mission is crucial. After an unsuccessful first test flight that nearly saw the vehicle lose in the late 2019, a software bug effectively stopped the spacecraft from reaching the space station.

Aerojet Rocketdyne provided Starliner’s propulsion systems, but problems later caused Boeing to cancel a second attempt last summer to launch the capsule.

Starliner remained grounded indefinitely for the next nine months as Starliner’s fuel valves failed to close properly. The two companies then fought over who was responsible and what they should do about it, according to Reuters.

Boeing claimed that it had resolved the issue using a temporary solution and is working on a redesign for next week.

Boeing’s success is pivotal as it struggles to overcome successive crises within its jetliner business as well as its space-defense division. Starliner alone has suffered nearly $600 million worth of engineering problems since 2019.

Starliner might fly its first crew of astronauts to space station in the fall, assuming everything goes smoothly with the current mission.

At the moment, Rosie the Rocketeer is the only passenger. She was dressed as a pilot and collected data regarding the cabin conditions.

The space station is home to seven members, including three NASA astronauts, an Italian astronaut with the European Space Agency and three Russian astronauts.

NASA will be able to provide a second, reliable way to ferry astronauts from Earth to space with the Starliner mission if it succeeds.

Nine years after the end of the shuttle program, crewed orbital flights from American soil to orbit in 2020 have been resumed by the U.S. Space Agency. The agency relies on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, and Crew Dragon capsules, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to fly NASA astronauts.

To reach the orbital lab, the only alternative was to ride onboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.