CAPE CANAVERAL: Boeing launched its very first astronauts bound for the International Space Station aboard a Starliner capsule on Wednesday. This joins a ‘select club’ of spacecraft, carrying humans beyond the planet Earth.

The aerospace giant finally found success after its third attempt. Two previous bids to fly with a crew were aborted late into the countdown, owing to technical difficulties.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — both of whom have two previous spaceflights under their belts — blasted off at 10:52am from the ‘Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’, in Florida. They are expected to spend around one week at the International Space Station.

“Suni and I are honoured to share this dream of spaceflight with each and every one of you,” Wilmore, the commander of the test flight, said right before liftoff. “Let’s put some fire in this rocket, and let’s push it to the heavens.”

Starliner has become the sixth type of US-built spaceship to fly Nasa astronauts. This follows the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs in the 1960s and 1970s, the Space Shuttle from 1981 to 2011 and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon from 2020.

However, the ‘Starliner’ program has been plagued by years of safety concerns and delays. A successful mission will ‘likely’ offer Boeing a ‘much-needed’ reprieve from the intense safety concerns surrounding its passenger jets.

Meanwhile, Nasa is looking to certify Boeing as a ‘second commercial operator’, to ferry crews to the International Space Station. This is something which Elon Musk’s ‘SpaceX’ has already been doing for the US space agency, for the last four years.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2024