CAPE CANAVERAL: Launch day is finally here: Boeing’s Starliner capsule blasts off on Monday to the International Space Station on its first crewed mission — several years after SpaceX first achieved the same milestone.

The flight, a final test before Starliner takes up regular service for Nasa, is critical for the US aerospace giant, whose reputation has suffered of late due to safety issues with some of its passenger jets.

Starliner, which was first ordered a decade ago by the US space agency, has had a bumpy ride to the finish line, with surprise setbacks and multiple delays — a saga Boeing is eager to complete.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are set to leave Cape Canaveral at 10:34pm on Monday aboard the capsule. Starliner will be propelled into orbit by an Atlas V rocket made by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture. Wilmore and Williams, Navy-trained space programme veterans, have each been to the ISS twice, traveling once on a shuttle and then aboard a Russian Soyuz vessel.

“It’s going to be like going back home,” Williams said. As for the Boeing spacecraft, Wilmore said: “Everything is new. Everything’s unique.” “I don’t think either one of us ever dreamed that we’d be associated with the first flight of a brand new spacecraft.”

For Nasa, the stakes are also high: Having a second option for human space flight in addition to SpaceX’s Dragon vehicles is “really important,” said Dana Weigel, manager of the agency’s Internatio­nal Space Station programme.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2024