Boeing’s Starliner docks at International Space Station for 1st time
Boeing’s Starliner capsule arrived at the International Space Station Friday night (May 20), notching a huge milestone for the aerospace giant and its quest to fly NASA astronauts to and from orbit.
Starliner lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on Thursday evening (May 19), kicking off a crucial uncrewed mission to the station called Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2). About 22 hours later, Starliner began zeroing in on the ISS, performing a series of fly-arounds, approaches and retreats designed to showcase its rendezvous chops.
This orbital dance culminated at 8:28 p.m. EDT (0028 GMT on May 21) today when Starliner finally linked up with the station, docking at the forward-facing port of its Harmony node. The Boeing spacecraft and station were sailing about 270 miles above the South Indian Ocean as they met in orbit.
“Starliner is looking beautiful on the front of the space station,” NASA astronaut Robert Hines radioed to Mission Control from the station after docking.
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A docking delayed
The docking occurred over an hour later than planned.
NASA and Boeing initially aimed to dock Starliner to the station at 7:10 p.m. EDT (2310 GMT), but held off initially to await better lighting and communications conditions, then delayed it again to reset the space capsule’s NASA Docking System, or NDS, when they detected a small anomaly. That reset worked and Starliner linked up smoothly with its docking port.
“The last few hours have been excruciating, you know, seeng that spacecraft just out of reach of [the] ISS,” Kathy Lueders, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, told reporters after the docking. “This is a really critical demonstration mission and it was important for us to get that demo data and get the learning from each of the steps along the way, and really put the vehicle through its paces.”
Sometimes, Lueders added, “that journey takes a little bit longer,” but for now, seeing “that vehicle docked now to the ISS is just phenomenal.”
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