Boeing and NASA will send a Starliner spacecraft with people on board to the ISS next spring

Here's What We Know

Six months ago, the Starliner visited the International Space Station in unmanned mode. However, the flight was accompanied by a lot of problems. Specialists recorded abnormal operation of the Vision-based Electro-optical Sensor Tracking Assembly (VESTA) system, which is responsible for docking. Also, a pair of engines shut down during the flight. Because of this, the test mission with people on board was postponed.

At the end of the summer, NASA and Boeing announced that February 2023 was chosen as the new date. Well, a couple of months later the first manned flight of the Starliner was again postponed to a later date. This time to April 2023.

Despite all the problems, NASA believes that the May flight was a success. The federal agency says that next month they will start work on fixing the spacecraft on the service module.

It is worth noting that between the first and second unmanned flights of the Starliner to the International Space Station there was a year and a half. The spacecraft first flew into space about three years ago, but missed the orbit and returned to Earth. After that, Boeing spent a year and a half fixing dozens of remarks from NASA. Meanwhile, overspending on the Starliner program is already approaching $1 billion.

Source: NASA

Image: NASA Spaceflight