Inaugural Starliner flight arrives at launch pad. (December 18, 2019)With countdown clocks ticking t
Inaugural Starliner flight arrives at launch pad. (December 18, 2019)With countdown clocks ticking towards the first test of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, the United Launch Alliance rolled the Atlas V vehicle to SLC-41 Wednesday morning. Starliner’s maiden voyage is scheduled to liftoff on an eight-day shakedown cruise to the International Space Station at 6:36am EST Friday, December 21. The 45th Space Wing, based at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, gives an 80% change of acceptable weather conditions for the instantaneous launch window.Starliner is one of two capsules developed as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, along with SpaceX’s Dragon. Both companies received contracts totaling $6.8 billion in 2014 to develop the first new crewed American spacecraft since the Space Transportation System in the mid-1970s.Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test marks the second flight of the program and first orbital flight. The capsule tested its abort capabilities during a Pad Abort Test at the White Sands Missile Range November 4. OFT-1 marks the first time an Atlas vehicle has launched a crew-capable spacecraft since the flight of Faith 7 and Mercury-Atlas 9 in May, 1963. It will also mark the first launch of a crew-capable spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station since Apollo 8 in December, 1968. The Atlas V will be flying in the new N22 configuration, denoting Starliner replacing a payload fairing, two solid rocket boosters and a dual-engine Centaur upper stage.P/c: NASA/ULA/Boeing -- source link
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