Enlarge / Boeing’s Starliner capsule lifts off aboard United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. (credit score: United Launch Alliance)
After years of delays, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft lastly rocketed into orbit from Florida on Wednesday, sending two veteran NASA astronauts on a long-delayed shakedown cruise to the Worldwide Area Station.
The Starliner capsule lifted off at 10:52 am EDT (14:52 UTC) on high of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Fifteen minutes later, after shedding two strap-on boosters and a core stage powered by a Russian RD-180 engine, the Atlas V’s Centaur higher stage launched Starliner proper on track to start a virtually 26-hour pursuit of the area station. Docking on the area station is about for 12:15 pm EDT (16:15 UTC) Thursday, the place NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will spend at the least every week earlier than coming again to Earth.
In remarks shortly after Wednesday’s launch, NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson mentioned Wilmore and Williams, each former US Navy pilots, will “check this factor from izzard to gizzard” to make sure Boeing’s Starliner is prepared for operational six-month crew rotation missions to the ISS.
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