Boeing engineers can exhale a sigh of relief.
The defense contractor's long-awaited Starliner spaceship made its way into a stable position Thursday evening after launching atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
Not everything went according to plan during that small victory. The two Starliner's thrusters didn't fire as planned just over 30 minutes into the flight. The only thrust that was provided was for a single second. The backup fired for 25 seconds before giving up.
Starliner was heaved into stable orbit thanks to a third backup thruster.
Boeing claims everything went as planned.
Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for Boeing's commercial crew program, said during the livestream that the system was designed to be redundant.
The team is trying to figure out why those anomalies happened.
The Orbital Flight Test 2 mission was the follow up to a previous failed attempt to dock with the International Space Station.
The first attempt back in December was plagued by software problems and almost ended in a failure.
Major issues with the valves of Starliner's propulsion system were identified by Boeing prior to this week's OFT-2 mission.
NASA and Boeing are both calling the launch a success.
The manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program said that today was a huge day for commercial crew.
The capsule is on its way to rendezvous with the space station. The rest of the journey should go without a hitch.
NASA and Boeing hail the success of the Starliner space capsule.
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