NASA officials on Wednesday announced that Boeing's Starline space capsule is all set for its uncrewed launch this week to the International Space Station. The space capsule will be flying to space without carrying any crew members.
This test launch will demonstrate whether the aerospace giant can safely fly humans in space.
The gumdrop-shaped space capsule has faced several hurdles in the past. Software failures in 2019 caused a delay in its debut attempt to dock at the space station, and fuel valve issues also added 9 nine months of delay.
Starline is set to make another attempt at launching to the space station at 6:54 pm EDT (4:24 am IST, May 20) on Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"We wouldn't be here right now if we weren't confident that this would be a successful mission," said Butch Wilmore, a NASA astronaut.
"The teams have been working hard to get ready for this," added Kathy Lueders, NASA's space operations chief, underlining that the Starline flight is a test mission. "We learned a lot from the first uncrewed demo (in 2019). We're gonna learn a lot from the second one."
