The spacecraft took to the skies at 6:54 pm ET Thursday, using atop an Atlas V rocket that launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station. After the rocket delivered the capsule into orbit, the spacecraft fired up its personal thrusters to orient it in the precise route. Boeing officers confirmed the Starliner’s “orbital insertion” — an indication the spacecraft is on the precise path — about half an hour after liftoff. The Starliner will spend about 24 hours free flying earlier than it arrives on the area station, the place it’s deliberate to make mild contact, docking with the station. It’s set to stay for lower than every week.

Starliner has confirmed a troublesome program for Boeing, which initially hoped the spacecraft could be operational in 2017 however has been suffering from delays and improvement hangups. The primary try of this check flight, referred to as OFT-1, in 2019 was reduce brief due to a problem with the Starliner’s onboard clock. The error prompted the thrusters onboard the capsule to misfire, knocking it off beam, and officers determined to carry the spacecraft again dwelling fairly than proceed the mission. It took greater than a 12 months to root out that concern and a sequence of different software program issues.

Extra just lately, the Starliner has been beleaguered by valve points. When the spacecraft was rolled out to the launch pad in August of 2021, a pre-flight verify revealed that key valves had been caught in place, and engineers weren’t in a position to instantly troubleshoot the difficulty.

Ultimately the capsule needed to be rolled again from the launch pad. When engineers weren’t in a position to repair it on the website, it in the end needed to be taken all the way in which again to Boeing’s manufacturing facility for extra thorough troubleshooting.

Boeing and NASA disagree, in line with the report and feedback from NASA officers throughout current press conferences.

Their investigation pointed to moisture stepping into the valves and inflicting “corrosion” and “binding,” Boeing vice chairman and Starliner program supervisor, Mark Nappi, mentioned at a press convention final week. That led the corporate to plan a short-term answer, making a purge system, which includes a small bag, designed to maintain out corrosion-causing moisture. NASA and Boeing say they’re comfy with this answer.

“We’re in actually good condition to go fly that system,” NASA’s Business Crew Program supervisor Steve Stich mentioned final week.

However that might not be the top of it. Boeing revealed final week that it might in the end have to revamp the valves.

“There’s a bit of little bit of further testing that we need to go do, and primarily based on these outcomes, we’ll solidify what sort of modifications we’ll make sooner or later,” Nappi mentioned. “We’ll in all probability know extra within the coming months.”

If Boeing does transfer ahead with a extra intensive redesign of the valves, it isn’t clear how lengthy that might take or if it might additional delay Boeing’s first astronaut mission, which, at this level, is years not on time. The hangups with Starliner have additionally price the corporate about half a billion {dollars}, in line with public paperwork.

In the meantime, SpaceX, as soon as regarded as the underdog competitor in NASA’s Business Crew Program, has already launched 5 astronaut missions for NASA in addition to two tourism missions. The inaugural astronaut launch of its automobile, the Crew Dragon, grew to become the primary to hold astronauts to orbit from US soil for the reason that House Shuttle Program retired in 2011.