Boeing’s Starliner secured on top of Atlas V rocket for second unmanned launch

July 17 (UPI) – Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft was secured on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral on Saturday in preparation for this month’s second unmanned flight test.

The Starliner capsule was towed from Boeing’s commercial crew and cargo processing facility to the ULA vertical integration facility at the Cape Canaveral space station to be hoisted to the top of the Atlas V, NASA said in a blog.

The commercial spacecraft will launch its second unmanned orbital flight test on July 30. During the mission, it will dock autonomously with the International Space Station to deliver approximately 440 pounds of cargo and crew supplies to NASA.

This will be the last test flight before NASA and Boeing begin exploring opportunities for Starliner’s first crewed mission, which is tentatively scheduled for later this year.

The Space Station serves as a microgravity research laboratory in orbit 250 miles above the Earth.

ULA tweeted a photo spacecraft being assembled stop the Atlas V rocket.

The upcoming flight test will demonstrate the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner spacecraft and the Atlas V rocket, from launch to docking to a return to Earth in the desert of the western United States, and provide valuable data for the certification of crewed flights, NASA said in a statement.

Pre-launch, launch and docking activities will be posted on the agency’s website.

During its first unmanned flight test on top of an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral in December 2019, the capsule struck a hitch, failing to reach the ISS as planned. It burned fuel too quickly due to an error in the automated system that maintained the timing of the mission, according to NASA. The trip to the ISS was aborted and the spacecraft was able to land safely in a New Mexico desert.

“Today a lot went well, and that’s why we are testing,” Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator at the time, told Space.com of the first test. in orbital flight. “If we had had [a] the crew there, number one, they would have been safe. ”