NASA BOEING STARLINER LAUNCH PLUS

NASA invested around $5 billion for design and development of the SpaceX Dragon and Boeing Starliner crew capsules, plus billions more for transportation services once the spacecraft were certified for human flights. вЂњThatвЂ™s been our goal since inception, and today that goal became true when Starliner docked.вЂќ вЂњOur goal was to have two redundant crew transportation systems,вЂќ Stich said. The contracts were signed after the retirement of NASAвЂ™s space shuttle fleet, which left the United States without its own crew launch capability. The docking marked a вЂњvery historic dayвЂќ for NASAвЂ™s commercial crew program, said Steve Stich, the NASA manager who oversees the agencyвЂ™s fixed-price crew transportation contracts with Boeing and SpaceX.

The Boeing Starliner spacecraft glided to a docking next to SpaceXвЂ™s Dragon crew ferry ship, marking the first time NASAвЂ™s two commercial crew contractors had capsules attached to the station at the same time. The Boeing crew carrier launched Thursday evening from Cape Canaveral on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, beginning the Orbital Flight Test-2 mission, a shakedown cruise for the gumdrop-shaped capsule. There were no astronauts on the Starliner spacecraft that docked Friday night, but the human-rated ship is designed to carry people to and from the space station. EDT Friday (0028 GMT Saturday), using vision-based navigation to autonomously guide itself to the docking target. The crew capsule docked at the forward end of the stationвЂ™s Harmony module at 8:28 p.m. Credit: Sergey Korsakov / RoscosmosД«oeingвЂ™s Starliner crew capsule finally reached the International Space Station Friday night with a вЂњnail-bitingвЂќ rendezvous and docking, overcoming several technical glitches to accomplish a long-awaited objective for the spacecraft before NASA clears it to ferry astronauts to the research complex. Russian cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov captured this view of the Starliner spacecraft approaching the International Space Station.

Nasa boeing starliner launch