Source: Boeing launches NASA astronauts for the first time in new Starliner | AP News
Boeing launched astronauts for the first time Wednesday, belatedly joining SpaceX as a second taxi service for NASA.
A pair of NASA test pilots blasted off aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule for the International Space Station, the first to fly the new spacecraft.
The trip by Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams was expected to take 25 hours, with an arrival Thursday. They will spend just over a week at the orbiting lab before climbing back into Starliner for a remote desert touchdown in the western U.S. on June 14.
“Let’s get going!” Wilmore called out minutes before liftoff.
Years late because of spacecraft flaws, Starliner’s crew debut comes as the company struggles with unrelated safety issues on its airplane side.
Wilmore and Williams — retired Navy captains and former space station residents — stressed repeatedly before the launch that they had full confidence in Boeing’s ability to get it right with this test flight. Crippled by bad software, Starliner’s initial test flight in 2019 without a crew had to be repeated before NASA would let its astronauts strap in. The 2022 do-over went much better, but parachute problems later cropped up and flammable tape had to be removed from the capsule.
Wednesday’s launch was the third attempt with astronauts since early May, coming after a pair of rocket-related problems, most recently last weekend. A small helium leak in the spacecraft’s propulsion system also caused delays, but managers decided the leak was manageable and not a safety issue.
周三，波音公司首次发射宇航员，继SpaceX之后成为美国宇航局的第二家出租服务公司。 美国国家航空航天局 (NASA) 的两名试飞员搭乘波音公司 Starliner 太空舱升空前往国际空间站，这是第一批搭乘新型航天器的飞行员。 布奇·威尔莫尔 (Butch Wilmore) 和苏尼·威廉姆斯 (Suni Williams) 的行程预计需要 25 小时，将于周四抵达。他们将在轨道实验室待一周多时间，然后于 6 月 14 日回到 Starliner，在美国西部偏远的沙漠着陆。 “让我们启程！”威尔莫在起飞前几分钟喊道。 由于航天器存在缺陷，Starliner 的机组人员首次亮相已经晚了好几年，同时，该公司正在努力解决飞机方面的安全问题。 威尔莫尔和威廉姆斯——退役海军上尉和前空间站居民——在发射前反复强调，他们对波音公司完成这次试飞的能力充满信心。由于软件问题，Starliner 于 2019 年在没有机组人员的情况下进行了首次试飞，之后 NASA 才让宇航员搭乘。2022 年重新试飞要好得多，但后来出现了降落伞问题，必须拆除机舱上的易燃胶带。周三的发射是自五月初以来宇航员的第三次尝试，此前发生了两次与火箭相关的问题，最近一次是在上周末。航天器推进系统中的少量氦气泄漏也导致了延误，但管理人员认为泄漏是可以控制的，而不是安全问题。
