Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule channels R2-D2 ahead of astronaut test flight

January 26, 2023

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Boeing’s Starliner crew module seems like it will match proper in wandering the deserts of Tatooine alongside C-3PO.

Starliner resembles the lovable droid R2-D2 from the “Star Wars” franchise in newly launched NASA photographs, which had been taken whereas the capsule was being mated to a brand new service module forward of its essential Crew Flight Check (CFT) to the International Space Station (ISS).

The mating course of occurred on the Business Crew and Cargo Processing Facility (C3PF – not C-3PO) at NASA’s Kennedy House Middle (KSC) in Florida. KSC is subsequent door to Cape Canaveral House Power Station, from which CFT — Starliner’s first-ever crewed flight — is about to launch this April.

That liftoff, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, will ship Starliner and NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams to the orbiting lab on a mission that is anticipated to final two weeks.

Associated: Boeing’s Starliner, a next-generation spaceship

The mating of the Starliner crew capsule and repair module is not the one work NASA and Boeing are performing to arrange for the upcoming CFT mission. In a blog post (opens in new tab) dated Tuesday (Jan. 24), NASA defined that Wilmore and Williams had carried out “mission costume rehearsal” testing at Boeing’s Avionics and Software program Integration Lab in Houston.

“The completion of the end-to-end mission rehearsal clears a path for the subsequent CFT milestones, together with working with the crew and flight controllers on numerous built-in failure eventualities and a sequence of flight-day parameter updates that may develop into out there because the staff nears launch day,” NASA’s put up reads.

The Starliner crew module is hoisted in Boeing’s Business Crew and Cargo Processing Facility on Jan. 19, 2023 earlier than being mated to a brand new service module for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Check. (Picture credit score: Boeing/John Grant)

An uncrewed take a look at flight in Might 2022, often known as Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), noticed a Starliner capsule fly to the ISS with out a crew. The flight was deemed successful regardless of experiencing a couple of minor anomalies with Starliner’s propulsion system. The primary Orbital Flight Check, in December 2019, encountered far more critical points, together with software program glitches that prevented the uncrewed Starliner from reaching the proper orbit for docking with the space station.

Regardless of such setbacks, NASA and Boeing have solid forward with their contract that may see Starliner capsules utilized in operational crewed missions to the ISS. SpaceX has already been fulfilling the same function for NASA utilizing its Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon capsules. The subsequent of those SpaceX missions, Crew-6, is predicted to take off no sooner than Feb. 26 from KSC.

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