Two astronauts will soon take off with the Starliner capsule. Objective: the International Space Station.
The big day is approaching for Boeing. In a few weeks, we will know if its Starliner capsule is ready for the International Space Station (ISS). A final preparation flight is indeed expected during the summer, on a date that is still uncertain. Except that this time, there will be two astronauts on board. A manned test, to demonstrate that everything is OK.
A successful first flight took place earlier in 2022, with one capsule found to be unoccupied. The craft docked with the ISS for a few days, was visited by the station crew and returned to Earth shortly after. It is now necessary to reproduce the same flight, but this time with personnel inside. This is the sine qua non condition before the real operational missions.
The two brave men selected for this crucial mission are Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore. They are two veterans of the American Space Agency.
The first has more than 321 days in space and can boast of having completed 7 extravehicular outings around the ISS, for a cumulative time of more than 50 hours spent in combination. The second spent 178 days outside the atmosphere and completed 4 spacewalks, a total of about 25 hours.
For those who follow space news, these two names are probably familiar. Sunita Williams was even mentioned for being a member of the first real Starliner mission (which is codenamed Starliner-1), the one that will come after this one. As for Barry Wilmore, it had been almost two years since he had been designated by NASA to participate in this test.
In short, Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore are the Douglas Hurleys and Bob Behnken of Boeing. These last two astronauts, also veterans within NASA, had been selected to board a test capsule, the Crew Dragon, manufactured by SpaceX. The mission had been a success, paving the way for SpaceX’s commercial flights.
For Boeing, the upcoming flight remains very sensitive. The company has no right to fail, both for the symbol it represents in the United States and because of the presence of a crew on board. The aerospace giant certainly achieved success in May, but it was after a long period punctuated by difficulties and delays.
The stakes are also critical for the United States, because it is on SpaceX and Boeing that autonomous access to space today rests – and soon on NASA, with the Space Launch System and the Orion capsule. . But it will still be several months before Boeing can operate its first crew rotations in the ISS: the very first flight of its kind is not expected before 2023.
