Two of NASA’s most experienced astronauts, with four previous spaceflights, eleven spacewalks and 500 days in orbit between them, are preparing to embark on perhaps their most perilous mission: the first crewed mission on a craft built by Boeing. According to CBS News, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams will be the first to pilot Boeing’s “Starliner” spacecraft, which has had two unmanned flights.
Wilmore and Williams will take the vehicle up on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at 10:34 p.m. ET on Monday, May 6th after what can be assumed will be the most bolt-tightening preflight inspection in history. The craft will dock with the International Space Station two days later and will return to Earth on May 15th.
The craft was first launched on an unmanned mission in December 2019 and was scheduled to dock with the ISS, but serious communications, software and control functions led to that test being aborted prior to the near-destruction of the craft as it reentered the atmosphere. A second test flight in 2021 went much more smoothly but exposed other problems. It’s unclear if any problems related to spacecraft’s exit row door plug.