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How to watch NASA add another path to the ISS from American soil

The first launch with a crew aboard of the Boeing CST-100, the latest spacecraft to transport astronaut to the International Space Station.

Posted 2024-05-07T00:04:23+00:00 - Updated 2024-05-07T19:45:23+00:00

Tony Rice

, NASA Ambassador

Tuesday update: NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) announced in a Tuesday press conference that they are targeting the next launch attempt of the Boeing Crew Flight Test no earlier than Friday, May 10 while teams investigate the technical issue that prevented the May 6 launch attempt.

Monday update: Monday's launch attempt has been scrubbed while the launch team evaluates an oxygen relief valve on the Centaur upper stage on the Atlas V rocket.

The first crewed flight of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsule is at for 10:34 p.m. EDT Monday night from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Launch coverage started at 6:30 on NASA's You Tube channel.

Two NASA astronauts, commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Sunita "Suni" WIlliams will be aboard Boeing Crew Flight Test (Boe-CFT). Both are veterans of two previous spaceflights and both are retired U.S. Navy Captains. During the 25 minute ride from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to Launch Complex 4, these naval aviators will be watching a bit of "Top Gun: Maverick" according to NASA.

Launch Weather Officer Brian Bensonf the the U.S. Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron and his team are forecasting 95% go conditions with any thunderstorms or other precipitation staying well west of the Cape.

A ridge is expected to settle in over North Central Florida by Monday and remain in place for several days. This ridge should bring southeasterly winds and cause any precipitation and thunderstorm development from the afternoon sea breeze to form well inland of the Spaceport. Any convection that does develop should remain west of Interstate 95 and have decayed away by the launch window. Although unlikely, there is a slight chance of a stray cumulus cloud posing a flight through concern, but the risk appears to be quite low.

This Boe-CFT mission marks the 100th launch of the Atlas V rocket, and the first time that launch vehicle has launched people. Only 17 Atlas V rockets remain. Seven re reserved for Starliner; eight for Project Kuiper, Amazon's constellation of broadband internet satellites; one for the US Air Force, and one for a European communications satellite customer.

Countdown

T-4 hours: Atlas V fueling complete
T-1:25: hatch closure
T-1:15 cabin leak check
T-20 minutes: Launch Conductor conducts terminal count briefing
T-18 minutes: poll for terminal count
T-15 minutes: CST-100 to internal power
T:-10 minutes: crew access arm retracted
T-80 minutes before launch: transfer to internal power
T-1 minute: CST-100 is configured for launch
T-3 seconds: RD-180, booster main ignition.
T0: launch
T+12 seconds after launch: roll program, putting the astronauts in a heads up position and aligning the rocket's path to reach the ISS
T+40 seconds: MaxQ or maximum pressure on the spacecraft as it accelerates through the denser layers of atmosphere
T+2:35: solid rocket motors separate, booster main engine continues to fire
T+4:30: booster engine cutoff, booster separation, and Starliner ascent cover separation
T+4:35: second stage ignition
T+12 minutes: main engine cutoff
T+15 minutes: spacecraft separation and Starliner coasts for 16 minutes uphill
T+31 minutes: spacecraft engines fire for the orbital insertion maneuver.

Why Starliner?

Every critical computer or other component involved in getting to space, especially getting people to space, requires a backup. That includes the vehicle itself.

Beginning in 1998, NASA's Space Shuttle and Russia's Soyuz provided transportation for astronauts, equipment and ISS modules themselves. NASA ended the shuttle program once the last ISS module was delivered to orbit in 2011, leaving only Soyuz.

Though the Soyuz MS is among the most reliable human rated spacecraft ever with only a single launch failure across 93 missions to the ISS or Mir space stations since the TM variant was introduced (and upgraded three times since) in 1986.

That one time, on October 11, 2018, when cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchininand and NASA astronaut Nick Hague declared an emergency when the one of the boosters lifting their Soyuz MS-10 capsule into orbit failed, reminded everyone of the importance of a second path to space.

NASA would buy seats on another 5 Soyuz flights until astronauts "Bob" Behnken and "Doug" Hurley returned human spaceflight to American soil with the Demo-2 mission (Demo-1 was uncrewed) of the newly human rated SpaceX Dragon 2 capsule.

Since then another 8 NASA crews have traveled to the ISS from Cape Canaveral aboard Dragon capsules. That first capsule Bob and Doug named Endeavour has been used on four additional missions so far is currently docked at the station after transporting NASA astronauts, Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut, Alexander Grebenkin.

How Starliner and Dragon stack up

Both spacecraft are designed to take astronauts to the ISS. Both will typically carry four astronauts but can accommodate up to seven. Those additional seats are filled with cargo and test equipment for the first crewed flight aboard Starliner.

Both have interiors about the size of a mid-sized SUV and can accommodate astronauts from 4'11" and 6'4".

Where the two spacecraft differ most in landing. Dragon was designed to splash down in the ocean along several locations along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic ocean along Florida .

Starliner is designed to land on .... land. The primary landing location is White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico with back up locations at Edwards Air Force Base in California, Willcox Playa in Arizona, and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. 54 space shuttle missions landed at Edwards between 1981 and 2008. A single shuttle mission, STS-3 in 1982, landed at White Sands when heavy rains flooded the landing strips along the dry lakebeds of Edwards.

Arriving at the ISS

The crew will arrive at the ISS at 12:46 a.m. on Wednesday May 8. It will dock at the newly vacated forward hatch of NASA's Harmony module. The SpaceX Dragon 2 capsule which brought Expedition 71 crew members to the station was relocated to the zenith, or space facing, port of the module.