On its third try, Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft reached Earth orbit at the moment. At 6:55 pm EDT, the uncrewed passenger capsule launched from the Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Florida atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
Rocket launches have turn into so widespread within the twenty first century that they've misplaced lots of the drama that marked the halcyon days of the House Race of the Nineteen Sixties. In the present day's launch was completely different as a result of Boeing's Starliner has had a checkered historical past with regards to stepping into orbit, together with a spectacular emergency touchdown.
Apart from the standard teething issues like a parachute failure throughout an abort check, Starliner has already had two launch failures. The primary was in 2019 when a software program glitch despatched the capsule into the flawed orbit, and the second was in August 2021 when the launch was scrubbed on account of a defective valve that required a serious overhaul of the spacecraft.
As within the earlier missions, Orbital Flight Check-2 (OFT-2) is uncrewed, however later flights will carry astronauts, fulfilling Starliner's function of ferrying crew and cargo from American soil to low-Earth orbit. Nonetheless, there's a "passenger" aboard the current flight within the type of a model named Rosie the Rocketeer, clad in a Boeing house swimsuit to take care of the capsule's correct heart of gravity.
In the present day's launch went off with out delays with the Atlas V rocket lifting off beneath the facility of its RD-180 engine producing 860,200 lb of thrust, supplemented by a pair of strong rocket boosters with an extra 348,500 lb of thrust every.
The primary stage pushed the rocket via the sound barrier about one minute into the flight, with the strong rockets jettisoning on the two-minute-22-second mark. The Atlas first stage shut down at 4 minutes 29 seconds and separated six seconds later. The Centaur second stage's twin RL10A-4-2 engines then took over and burned for seven minutes.
On the 14-minute-54-second mark, the Starliner separated and ignited the 4 thrusters in its service module, reaching orbit 31 minutes after launch.
Carrying 500 lb (226 kg) of meals and provisions, Starliner is presently executing a collection of orbital maneuvers that can permit it to rendezvous with the Worldwide House Station (ISS) in about 24 hours. It'll dock with the house lab for 5 to 10 days earlier than returning to Earth for a parachute touchdown on the White Sands Missile Vary in New Mexico, Edwards Air Pressure Base in California, Willcox Playa in Arizona, or Dugway Proving Floor in Utah, relying on its return orbit.
The video under is a replay of the NASA launch protection.
Sources: NASA
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