Long waiting times and visits to the workshop: more than two years ago, Boeing’s “Starliner” spaceship was supposed to take off and fly to the International Space Station. Now the time has come.
After a series of setbacks, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has launched to the International Space Station. On the night of Friday, it left the Cape Canaveral spaceport for the outpost of mankind.
It is an unmanned test for the crisis-ridden Starliner, which is more than two years behind schedule.
In the future, Boeing’s spacecraft will transport astronauts to the ISS as an alternative to SpaceX’s “Crew Dragon” space capsule. That should have happened a long time ago, but during a first test in December 2019, the spacecraft did not make it to the ISS – partly because of a problem with the automatic ignition of the engines. The mission had been postponed several times in the past year – and then the “Starliner” finally had to go back to the workshop completely because of valve problems.