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Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft launching first crew tonight after years of delays: “An absolutely critical milestone”

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An Atlas 5 rocket carrying astronauts for the first time in six decades was primed for blastoff Monday night to boost Boeing’s long-delayed Starliner crew ferry ship into orbit for its first piloted test flight to the International Space Station.

Running years behind schedule and more than a billion dollars over budget, the Starliner is Boeing’s answer to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, an already operational spacecraft that has carried 50 astronauts, cosmonauts and civilians into orbit in 13 flights, 12 of them to the space station.

atlas-padview4.jpg
In a dramatic sunset Sunday shot, the Atlas 5 rocket and Starliner crew capsule stand poised for launch at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, all systems ‘go’ for the spacecraft’s first piloted test flight to the International Space Station.

United Launch Alliance


NASA funded development of both spacecraft to ensure the agency would be able to launch crews to the outpost even if one company’s ferry ship was grounded for any reason. 

Astronauts ready for launch 

While it’s taken Boeing longer than expected to ready their ship for crew flights, all systems were go for launch from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:34 p.m. EDT.

At the controls will be mission commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams, both veteran Navy test pilots and active-duty NASA astronauts with four earlier spaceflights to their credit, 11 spacewalks between them and a combined 500 days in orbit.

Starliner commander Barry
Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams, both veteran Navy test pilots and NASA astronauts with four spaceflights between them.

NASA


Like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, the Starliner is equipped with a “full-envelope” abort system capable of quickly propelling the capsule away from its booster in the event of a major malfunction at any point from the launch pad to orbit.

But if all goes well, the Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage will release the Starliner into a preliminary orbit 15 minutes after liftoff. The astronauts then will monitor two quick thruster firings to fine-tune the ship’s orbit before taking turns testing the spacecraft’s computer-assisted manual control system.

As with any other space station rendezvous, the Starliner will approach the lab from behind and below, looping up to a point directly ahead of the outpost and then moving in for docking at the Harmony module’s forward port at 12:46 a.m. Wednesday.

During final approach, Wilmore and Williams will again test the capsule’s manual controls, making sure future crews can tweak the trajectory or the spacecraft’s orientation at their own discretion if needed.

The Starliner also is equipped with a fully manual backup system that allows the crew to directly command the ship’s thrusters using a joystick-like hand controller, bypassing the spacecraft’s flight computers. Wilmore and Williams will test that system after departing the station around May 15 to begin the trip back to Earth.

If the Starliner test flight goes well, NASA managers plan to certify it for routine crew rotation flights, launch one Crew Dragon and one Starliner each year to deliver long-duration crew members to the station for six-month tours of duty.

“An absolutely critical milestone”

Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, called the Starliner Crew Flight test, or CFT, “an absolutely critical milestone.”

“Let me just remind everybody again, this is a new spacecraft,” he told reporters last week. “We certainly have some unknowns in this mission, we may encounter things we don’t expect. But our job now is to remain vigilant and keep looking for issues.”

While he said he was confident the Starliner was up to the task, Free said he did not want to “get too far ahead” since the crew has yet to complete a successful mission. But “when we do,” he added, “and when we certify Starliner, the United States will have two unique human space transportations that provide critical redundancy for the ISS access.”

But it hasn’t been easy.

In the wake of the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011, NASA awarded two Commercial Crew Program contracts in 2014, one to SpaceX valued at $2.6 billion and the other to Boeing for $4.2 billion, to spur development of independent spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The target date for initial piloted CCP flights was 2017. Funding shortfalls in Congress and technical snags delayed development, including an explosion during a ground test that destroyed a SpaceX Crew Dragon.

But the California rocket builder finally kicked off piloted flights in May 2020, successfully launching two NASA astronauts on a Crew Dragon test flight to the space station.

Since then, SpaceX has launched eight operational crew rotation flights to the station, three research missions to the lab funded by Houston-based Axiom Space and a purely commercial, two-man, two-woman trip to low-Earth orbit paid for by billionaire pilot and businessman Jared Isaacman. In all, 50 people have flown to orbit aboard Crew Dragons.

It’s been a different story for Boeing’s Starliner.

During an initial unpiloted test flight in December 2019, a software error prevented the ship’s flight computer from loading the correct launch time from its counterpart aboard the Atlas 5.

atlas-padview5.jpg
The Starliner capsule and its service module are attached to the Atlas 5 booster’s thinner Centaur upper stage for launch. The drum-shaped extension at the bottom of the service module is an “aeroskirt” designed to improve aerodynamics during the climb out of the thick lower atmosphere.

United Launch Alliance


As a result, a required orbit insertion burn did not happen on time and because of unrelated communications issues, flight controllers were unable to regain control in time to press ahead with a space station rendezvous.

The software problems were addressed after the Starliner’s landing, along with a variety of other issues that came to light in a post-flight review. Boeing opted to carry out a second test flight, at its own expense, but the company ran into into stuck propulsion system valves in the Starliner’s service module. Engineers were unable to resolve the problem and the capsule was taken off its Atlas 5 and hauled back to its processing facility for troubleshooting.

Engineers eventually traced the problem to moisture, presumably from high humidity and torrential rain after rollout to the pad, that chemically reacted with thruster propellant to form corrosion. The corrosion prevented the valves from opening on command.

To clear the way for launch the following May, the valves in a new service module were replaced and the system was modified to prevent water intrusion on the launch pad. The second Starliner test flight in May 2022 was a success, docking at the space station as planned and returning to Earth with a pinpoint landing.

But in the wake of the flight, engineers discovered fresh problems: trouble with parachute harness connectors and concern about protective tape wrapped around wiring that could catch fire in a short circuit.

Work to correct those issues pushed the first crewed flight from 2023 to 2024. When all was said and done, Boeing spent more than $1 billion of its own money to pay for the additional test flight and corrective actions.



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Trump ally Nigel Farage heckles his hecklers as his far-right Reform UK Party makes gains in U.K. election

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The Labour Party and its leader, new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, undoubtedly won the U.K. general election, but as he set to work building his new cabinet, there was another politician keen to crow about his party’s election windfall, much smaller though it was. Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform UK party and long one of Britain’s most divisive politicians, was heckled by a series of protesters as he took the stage to deliver a speech in London on Friday.

He smiled through the interruptions, and even heckled his hecklers back, loudly chanting “boring!” as they were removed from the hall.

Reform UK grabbed only four seats in the British Parliament’s 650-seat House of Commons in Thursday’s national election. But that’s four more than it had before.

Labour Party Wins UK Election
Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, reacts at a news conference following the general election, in London, July 5, 2024.

Carlos Jasso/Bloomberg/Getty


Farage argues that the U.K.’s first-past-the-post voting system makes it difficult for smaller parties to match their overall share of the votes with their share of seats won in the Commons, and he vowed on Friday to push for an end to the current system. But the real success for Farage was in the overall vote tally, not the four seats his party won, which included his own first election to the parliament.

To the consternation of the long-ruling Conservative Party, from which it pilfered a huge amount of support, the anti-immigration Reform UK, whose leader and policies had long been relegated to the fringes of British politics, took about 15% of the vote, with just over 4 million ballots in total.

That gave Reform UK the third-highest overall vote count among all the parties that competed for the parliamentary seats, overtaking even the Liberal Democrats, who, despite getting about half a million fewer votes, emerged on Friday with a record 71 seats in the Commons.

Nigel Farage Celebrates Reform UK's Election Success
Leader of the Reform UK, Nigel Farage, speaks to the media during a press conference presenting the party’s program for the upcoming Parliament, July 5, 2024, in London, England.

Dan Kitwood/Getty


Farage, 60, won the seat in his home constituency of Clacton, in southeast England, after seven previous failed attempts. His Reform UK party, founded initially in 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating for a complete and uncompromising break with the European Union, has always campaigned on cutting immigration to Britain.

The Englishman is often compared to his transatlantic ally former U.S. President Donald Trump, for both his brash political style and his nationalist rhetoric, and he’s appeared at events with the Republican in the U.S. and met with him in Britain, too.

“Congratulations to Nigel Farage on his big WIN of a Parliament Seat Amid Reform UK Election Success. Nigel is a man who truly loves his Country!” Trump wrote on his own social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday. Mr. Trump made no mention of the Labour Party’s landslide election victory, or Starmer becoming the new prime minister.

Donald Trump Campaigns In Arizona Ahead Of Presidential Election
British politician Nigel Farage (R) praises U.S. President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Phoenix Goodyear Airport, in an Oct. 28, 2020 file photo taken in Goodyear, Arizona.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty


Farage’s campaign was marred by a number of 11th-hour controversies, mostly involving racist or sexist comments attributed to Reform UK candidates, and on election day he vowed to “professionalize” his party.

“Those few bad apples that have crept in will be long gone and we will never have any of their type back in our organization,” Farage told his supporters, along with the British public and his keenly observing political opponents.

Speaking to CBS News’ Emmet Lyons on Friday morning as the election results were finalized, the Labour Party Mayor of London Sadiq Khan acknowledged the rise of “popular nativist, nationalist movements,” and said Starmer would govern “in the national interest, show humility, be magnanimous and be humble over the course of the next three, four, five years.”

“We’ve got to earn the trust of those that voted Labour, but also try and win the confidence of those that didn’t,” he said.

That will undoubtedly be one of the chief missions of both the Labour and Conservative Parties in the years ahead.

They’ll both be eager to craft political strategies ahead of the next national election that can stop voters following the trend to the far-right seen across Europe in recent years – a trend which, despite their minimal presence in Parliament, was also demonstrated by Reform UK’s share of the votes this week.



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What to expect from 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans

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What to expect from 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans – CBS News


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The 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture is underway in New Orleans. Janet Jackson, Usher and Birdman are among the headliners with Vice President Kamala Harris also set to make an appearance. Hakeem Holmes, vice president of the festival, joined CBS News to preview what’s in store for attendees.

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GOP, Democratic strategists on Biden’s next steps with calls for him to drop out growing

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GOP, Democratic strategists on Biden’s next steps with calls for him to drop out growing – CBS News


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President Biden will try to tamp down concerns about his campaign Friday with a rally in Wisconsin and an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos amid growing calls for him to end his reelection bid. Democratic strategist Joel Payne and Republican strategist Marc Lotter joined CBS News to discuss the president’s ongoing effort to recover from last week’s debate against former President Donald Trump.

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