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Boeing's Starliner crew capsule, which has been plagued by years of setbacks and cost overruns amounting to roughly $1.5 billion, is about to take its first flight with humans on board. Boeing was chosen 10 years ago alongside SpaceX to develop a spacecraft that could ferry astronauts from US soil to the International Space Station (ISS), thus allowing NASA to end its reliance on Russia for crewed flights. The companies were each awarded a fixed-price contract under NASA's Commercial Crew Program: $4.2 billion to Boeing for its CST-100 (Starliner) and $2.6 billion for SpaceX's Crew Dragon.
Their initial deadline of 2017 proved to be a bit too ambitious. SpaceX managed its first crewed flight in 2020 — and about a dozen since — while Boeing has struggled to get its Starliner capsule off the ground. But as soon as May 6, it'll finally have a crewed flight under its belt.
Starliner is now at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Launch Complex-41 attached to the ULA Atlas V rocket that'll send it on its way to the ISS. Liftoff is planned for 10:34PM ET on Monday, May 6. The capsule will be carrying two NASA astronauts: Butch Wilmore, the mission's commander, and Suni Williams, who will serve as pilot.
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