Starliner "Calypso" Moves To Launch Pad For Vehicle Mating | TalkOfTitusville.com

On hand to greet Boeing employees and members of the press were CFT Pilot Sunita "Suni" Williams and CFT Commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore. The two thanked everyone for coming out to greet them early in the morning, and they expressed their confidence in a great mission to come. "We're super proud of this team," Williams said. "They made it happen, and it's time to turn [Starliner] over from production to operations." With that, the pair expressed their readiness to go fly aboard Starliner.

Flight Objectives

First, and foremost, Boeing and NASA mission managers would like to see a relatively event-free maiden crewed flight of Starliner, with no unexpected major incidents. Boeing's Starliner has flown twice, once in 2019 and once in 2022, and neither time with crew aboard. 

The first flight, Orbital Flight Test 1 (OFT-1), in 2019, failed to reach the International Space Station (ISS) after the on-board clock malfunctioned. The second flight, Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), in 2022 met all of its major objectives and docked with the ISS, where it remained for four days before returning to Earth.

Since the second flight, other problems, including a potentially flammable tape used to wrap the wiring harnesses of Starliner were replaced, issues with parachute lines and its harness were improved and tested, and software improvements were made. Those remediations held up this Crewed Flight Test until earlier this year, and after that, scheduling issues on the International Space Station ports has kept Starliner on the ground.

Now that the ISS docking ports are clear and technical issues have been resolved, Boeing, United Launch Alliance and NASA have begun their launch campaign, which begins in earnest with a planned liftoff no earlier than May 6th.

Crewed Flight Test Objectives

Last month, Mark Nappi, Boeing's Vice President and Program Manager of the Starliner Program outlined what promises to be a busy schedule for Williams and Willmore during the flight. "The CFT flight is really the introduction of crew into our vehicle system. So a lot of our flight test objectives are about how that interface is going to work."

Nappi said regarding flight test objectives, "We've got just under 90 of them. And it's all, does the vehicle perform with the human in the loop, as expected?"

"We flew OFT-2," Nappi added, "And that was the uncrewed mission for the Starliner vehicle. It was very successful. Now we introduce the human. And so what are we going to do to establish that interface?"

"From prelaunch through ascent, we're going to be looking at how the astronauts fit into the seats, how they interface with the equipment in the vehicle. when we go through approach and rendezvous." After that, Nappi said, "We'll confirm the thruster performance and manual scenarios are working as expected. We'll check the communications. We'll check the manual and auto navigation systems and the operation of the life support system with crew now in the vehicle."

"CFT is a test flight, so we expect that there may be some lessons learned," Nappi concluded.