Preparations underway for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test; targeting early February 2023 launch

NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) to the International Space Station (ISS) - the first flight with astronauts on the company's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft - is scheduled to launch in early February 2023.

Preparations are underway for the launch as NASA and Boeing teams work to ready the hardware, crew, and mission support teams for flight as part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program. Recently, the teams conducted an integrated crew exercise to rehearse the prelaunch timeline and responses to various launch event scenarios. In the coming weeks, the astronauts will don their spacesuits and climb aboard their crew module to check out the vehicle systems and interfaces that support their health and safety.

For the crewed flight, Boeing's Starliner will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. CFT will demonstrate the ability of the spacecraft and the rocket to safely carry astronauts to and from the space station.

NASA will fly two astronaut test pilots, Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, on the flight test to the space station, where they will live and work off the Earth for about two weeks.

Following a successful CFT mission, the agency will start the final process of certifying the Starliner spacecraft and systems for crew missions to the space station.

"The Starliner team has done an excellent job throughout the refurbishment process of incorporating all the learning from our uncrewed orbital test flight. We expect to do even more learning on our next flight with astronauts to set Starliner up for certification and future operational missions," said Steve Stich, manager, NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

#Starliner's first crewed flight test will take @NASA_Astronauts and test pilots Barry "Butch" Wilmore and @Astro_Suni Williams to @Space_Station. Wilmore and Williams continue to train as our teams target early next year for launch.Learn more: https://t.co/n0F7vBFcIx pic.twitter.com/fPCniZbrCr

— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) August 25, 2022