Boeing's Starliner to fly crucial OFT-2 test flight to space station this week at long last

The uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 2 mission to the International Space Station is all set to launch with Boeing's Starliner capsule.

NASA and Boeing are aiming for an instantaneous launch window of May 19 at 6:54 p.m. The Atlas V rocket will be used for the liftoff of Starliner. This will be Starliner's second attempt to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station, and a critical step in NASA's certification of the Boeing spaceship for human passengers.

The first OFT mission from Starliner fell short of expectations due to software issues. In August 2021, Boeing prepared Starliner for a do-over, but preflight checks hours before liftoff revealed problems in over half of the oxidizer valves in Starliner's propulsion system, and the launch was scrubbed. The capsule was unstacked from Atlas V and returned to Boeing for repairs.

The Starliner OFT-2 mission is in pictures.

Starliner has been declared ready to roll once more after the valve issues have been resolved.

NASA is counting on the success of OFT-2 in order to begin sending astronauts to the space station in larger numbers. The Crew Dragon, which was launched last month, is the fourth crewed mission to the International Space Station, easing NASA's dependence on Russian Soyuz for taxiing crews to and from the orbital laboratory.

NASA signed contracts with two companies to design and develop vehicles to launch astronauts to the space station. NASA will be able to reduce its reliance on any single human spaceflight launch provider once Starliner is certified.

Starliner will be docked with the International Space Station for between five and 10 days before returning to Earth. NASA and Boeing hope to launch the capsule with its first crew before the end of 2022.

The OFT-2 will dock to the port of the Harmony module about a day after launch, and it will deliver over 400 pounds (180 kilograms) of food and other provisions for the current station crews. If there are any technical or weather issues on Thursday, a backup launch window will be available on May 20 at 6:32 p.m. The time is 2232 GMT.

Follow us on social media.