If all goes well, an uncrewed Boeing Starliner spacecraft will ride a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to orbit at 1:20 p.m. on Tuesday, August 3, and then rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station at 6 p.m. on August 4.
Boeing Orbital Flight Test-2 is a second chance for Boeing’s vehicle, which failed to make a similar rendezvous during its first test flight in December 2020 due to a software malfunction.
It will also be a second chance for the launch itself: Originally scheduled for Friday, July 30, that launch was canceled after the Russian Nauka module on the ISS mistakenly fired its thrusters and threw the space station out of its proper orientation. For Starliner to dock, the ISS has to be business as usual.
Boeing and SpaceX are the only two companies to win contracts for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which aims to use commercial providers to fly astronauts and cargo to the ISS and end the space agency’s reliance on the Russian Soyuz launching American astronauts from Kazakhstan.
SpaceX first flew astronauts to the ISS in November aboard its Crew Dragon vehicle. Boeing — and NASA — hope Starliner can soon begin service as a second Commercial Crew vehicle.
NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy said during a mission briefing Thursday that the program provides a boost to crew time and cargo, which NASA can use to accomplish more science on the ISS. “That’s one of the deeper reasons we are here for this launch.”
How to watch — Assuming the August 3 launch happens as planned, the Starliner test flight will launch at 1:20 p.m. EDT, with live NASA TV coverage at www.nasa.gov/nasalive.
Why it matters — Before the Starliner can begin ferrying that additional cargo and crew to the ISS and catalyze more great science, the spacecraft needs to prove to NASA that it can meet the mission requirements, including the failed docking procedure.
On December 20, during the first Starliner flight test, the space capsule’s mission elapsed time system malfunctioned, leading to unexpected maneuvering and burning through propellant, ultimately preventing the vehicle from attempting the ISS rendezvous.
“That’s going to be of critical importance on this mission coming up, that we demonstrate we can do rendezvous,” NASA associate administer Robert Cabana said during Thursday’s briefing. “And we are going to bring some cargo home too, which is critical for future missions to the ISS.”
The NASA Commercial Crew program followed from the canceled Constellation program, a previous effort to build an American pipeline to orbit and transport to the ISS that had been lacking since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011.
According to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, having a second vehicle flying as part of that program provides an important redundancy that ensures NASA can keep the ISS supplied. “What if we hadn’t had two competitors?” he asked at Thursday’s briefing. “What if it had only been Boeing?”
What Starliner means for human spaceflight
At Thursday’s briefing, Cabana noted that Commercial Crew is more than just a means to bring crew and cargo launches to the ISS back to American soil — it’s about saving resources for what NASA really wants to do.
“Our goal with the Commercial Crew program is to commercialize low-Earth orbit,” he said. “We want to have a commercial economy in low-Earth orbit so that we can go on and do the hard things of returning to the moon, exploring beyond our home planet, and going on to Mars.”
NASA doesn’t simply want to stay out of the Earth to orbit taxi business, “we want a commercial space station in orbit too,” Cabana added. “We don’t have to own and operate the entire thing. We can free up that funding for our exploration program and just buy what we need for the research in low-Earth orbit.”
What’s next — Assuming the Boeing Starliner performs as both Boeing and NASA hope, NASA will try to schedule a crewed Starliner test flight before the end of 2021, which will carry NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, Nicole Mann, and Mike Fincke to the ISS.
A successful crewed test flight would then clear the path Starliner-1 sometime in 2022, the Starliner’s first operational flight carrying astronauts Jeanette Epps, Sunita Williams, Josh Cassada, and Koichi Wakata to the space station.
In the interim, the already operational SpaceX Crew Dragon will fly its third crew mission to the ISS on October 31, with the second Crew Dragon, which launched on April 23, returning astronauts to Earth sometime in November.
