Boeing's troubled Starliner launches for ISS in key test
American aerospace giant Boeing launched its Starliner capsule for the International Space Station Thursday in a critical uncrewed test flight that followed years of failures and false starts.
The Orbital Test Flight 2 (OFT-2) mission blasted off at 6:54 pm Eastern Time from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, with the spaceship fixed atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
"Starliner is headed back to space on the shoulders of Atlas," an announcer said on a NASA live feed.
Its success is key to repairing Boeing's frayed reputation after the first bid, back in 2019, failed to dock with the ISS due to software bugs -- one that led to it burning too much fuel to reach its destination, and another that could have destroyed the vehicle during re-entry.
A second try was scheduled in August of last year, but was rolled back from the launchpad to address sticky valves that weren't opening as they should, and the capsule was eventually sent back to the factory for fixes.
"This is a great moment," said NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy, just before launch. "When we built the space station we were really focused on all the amazing science that we can do in the innovation, and so now having another way to get there just gives us more resilience."
NASA is looking to certify Starliner as a second "taxi" service for its astronauts to the space station -- a role that Elon Musk's SpaceX has provided since succeeding in a test mission for its Dragon capsule in 2020.
