NASA and Boeing have set 29th March as the date for the launch of Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) is a critical developmental milestone on the company’s path toward flying crew missions for NASA. The CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
It is expected to return to land in the western United States about a week later as part of an end-to-end test to prove the system is ready to fly crew. The OFT-2 Starliner spacecraft is nearing final assembly inside the company’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Read more: NASA delays launch of SpaceX Crew-1 mission until November
The vehicle’s reusable crew module has been powered up and final checkouts of the avionics, power, and propulsion systems are nearing the completion stage. Boeing technicians continue to refurbish the crew module flown on Starliner’s first Orbital Flight Test while also building a brand-new service module for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), which is targeted for launch in summer 2021, following a successful OFT-2 mission.
