Boeing’s Starliner capsule is set to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) for the very first time on Friday evening (May 20), and you can watch the defining moment live.
Starliner lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on Thursday evening (May 19), launching a crucial uncrewed mission to the ISS called Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2). The Starliner capsule is expected to arrive at the orbital lab on Friday around 7:10 p.m. EDT (11:10 p.m.).
You can watch the action live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV, or directly through the space agency. Coverage begins at 3:30 p.m. EDT (7:30 p.m. GMT).
Live updates: Boeing Starliner Orbital Flight Test 2 mission to the ISS
Related: Boeing’s Starliner OFT-2 test flight for NASA in stunning photos
Yes, that’s a lot of airtime, but this docking attempt is a really big deal for Boeing and NASA. OFT-2 is designed to show that Starliner is ready to ferry astronauts to and from the space agency’s orbiting laboratory, and it’s the second bite of the capsule in this apple.
“We have learned a lot about the capabilities of our spacecraft and the resilience of our team since the first Starliner launch,” Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of the Boeing Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. . “We still have a lot of operational tests ahead as we prepare for our rendezvous with the space station, but we are ready to demonstrate that the system we have worked so hard on is capable of carrying astronauts into space. .”
Just reaching the planned orbit with Starliner is a feat for Boeing.
The original OFT, which launched in December 2019, ended prematurely after Starliner suffered a series of software glitches and became stuck in an orbit too low to allow an ISS rendezvous. And OFT-2 was originally scheduled to take off last summer, but pre-launch checks revealed that 13 of the 24 oxidizer valves in Starliner’s propulsion system were stuck. It took about eight months to identify the cause of the problem and fix it.
OFT-2 hasn’t gone smoothly so far either. One of Starliner’s boosters malfunctioned during its critical orbital insertion burn 31 minutes after liftoff, NASA and Boeing officials said at a post-launch news conference Thursday night.
This thruster’s backup fired to compensate but failed before completing the burn. A tertiary backup booster then fired up and Starliner was able to place itself in the correct orbit for an ISS rendezvous. That one-shot backup thruster also performed well during a subsequent Starliner engine burn Thursday night, NASA officials said.
“The system is designed to be redundant, and it worked as it was supposed to. Now the team is working on the ‘why’ to explain why these anomalies occurred,” Nappi said at the press conference. .
Mike Wall is the author of “The low(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom Or on Facebook.