Boeing’s Starliner CFT succeeds on third launch attempt
Teams at NASA and Boeing confirmed on Monday that the Starliner spacecraft, ULA Atlas V rocket, and ground support equipment are healthy and ready for the 10:52 am ET June 5 launch of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. Meteorologists with the 45th Weather Squadron predict 90% favorable weather conditions for liftoff.
On Wednesday, June 5 at 10:52 AM EDT (14:52 UTC), the Atlas V rocket carrying the Starliner spacecraft and crew of Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the third attempt. The previous two tries on May 6 and June 1 were scrubbed, one due to an issue with a valve on the Centaur upper stage and the other due to a fault with ground support equipment controlling the launch vehicle’s countdown.
Following the successful liftoff, the vehicle performed a pitch and yaw maneuver to align it on a trajectory to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS). Key milestones during ascent included:
- Max Q at T+1 minute 1 second, passing through the period of maximum aerodynamic stress
- Solid rocket booster jettison at T+2 minutes 20 seconds
- Booster engine cutoff (BECO) at T+4 minutes 28 seconds
- Atlas booster separation at T+4 minutes 34 seconds
- Ascent cover jettison at T+4 minutes 40 seconds
- Centaur first main engine start (MES-1) at T+4 minutes 44 seconds
The Centaur upper stage’s RL-10A engines fired until main engine cutoff (MECO) at T+11 minutes 52 seconds. After a short coast, the Starliner capsule separated from the Centaur at T+14 minutes 52 seconds on a suborbital trajectory. Calypso then performed its orbital insertion burn at 31 minutes into the flight to begin pursuit of the ISS.
Once in a stable orbit and on course for the International Space Station, Starliner begins its rendezvous procedure. In a unique test for the Crew Flight Test mission, Wilmore and Williams will manually control the capsule’s flight for a portion of the approach, in addition to the automated systems already demonstrated on the previous two uncrewed Orbital Flight Tests.
Approximately two days after launch, the crew will guide Starliner through a series of burns to close in on the ISS. This includes two height adjustment maneuvers to raise their orbit, followed by plane change burns to align their orbital plane with the Station’s trajectory. One final burn will place the spacecraft inside the 4 x 2 x 2 kilometer approach ellipsoid centered on the ISS.
As Starliner enters this imaginary ellipsoid, it officially transitions into the controlled space around the Station managed by NASA flight controllers. The capsule will pause 200 meters from the orbiting lab before receiving approval to proceed inside the keep-out sphere, the final zone of control surrounding the ISS.
Executing a straight-line approach, Calypso will autonomously guide itself to a docking at the forward International Docking Adapter on the Harmony module. This same port was vacated just weeks earlier by the Crew Dragon spacecraft that delivered NASA’s Crew-8 mission to the Station. If all goes as planned, Starliner will mark the first time a crewed Boeing capsule has docked to the orbital complex.
