Miami – The Atlas V rocket with the Starliner ship at its peak returned this Thursday to the platform from where what will be the first manned space mission of Boeingwhose launch towards the International Space Station (EEI) is scheduled for next Saturday.
Shortly after 10:00 am today, The rocket and ship left a hangar to begin their slow transfer atop a large rolling platform to the launch complex of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida (USA), from where the CFT mission will take off (acronym for Crew Flight Test).
“Butch and Suni, your rocket is on the launch pad!”announced less than an hour later the company United Launch Alliance (ULA), manufacturer of the Atlas V booster rocket, in a message on the social network the astronauts of the POT Barry 'Butch' Wilmore and Sunita Williams.
Liftoff of Boeing's first manned space mission is scheduled for 12:25 pm next Saturday.
In case of not achieving it that day, NASA, Boeing and ULA use June 2, 5 and 6 as backup dates, possibly during daylight hours.
The transfer to the rocket and capsule platform follows the approval achieved during the final pre-launch reviews that took place on Wednesday.
A day earlier, astronauts Wilmore and Williams returned to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, and since then, as specified in the protocol for the crew, they have been in quarantine until the launch on Saturday.
On May 6, the Starliner was preparing to rise towards the ISS, with Wilmore and Williams on board, from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, but About two hours before launch, the operation was suspended after an anomaly was discovered in a liquid oxygen tank on the Atlas V.
The company removed the rocket and ship from the platform to change a valve on the rocket's oxygen tank, which led to a postponement of the mission shipment, which was delayed again when technicians discovered a helium leak in the module. Starliner service.
As reported by NASA last week, The origin of this leak lies in a defective seal in one of the ship's 28 flanges.
The success of the mission will allow Boeing to obtain the necessary certifications to operate as a second provider of cargo and crew transportation to the ISS, as it already does. SpaceX after million-dollar contracts that both private firms have signed with NASA.