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Starliner docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on June 6 at 1734 UTC as both spacecraft flew over the southern Indian Ocean. Calypso missed its first docking chance, at 1615 UTC, after five of its 28 reaction-control thrusters malfunctioned. But the mission team got four of those impacted thrusters back online, and Starliner was cleared to approach the ISS in the next window.
Today's Starliner's thruster issues followed two helium leaks the mission team detected after the capsule reached orbit. A different helium leak cropped up before launch as well, but was not regarded as a serious problem.
"Butch and Suni, nicely done," Neal Nagata, NASA's CAPCOM (spacecraft communicator) radioed the Starliner astronauts from Mission Control in Houston, following docking, Thursday. "Welcome back to the ISS."
"Nice to be attached to the big city in the sky," Wilmore radioed to Mission Control. "It's a great place to be. We're looking forward to staying here for a couple of weeks and getting all the things that we need to get done."
Both astronauts opened Starliner's hatch about two hours after, and floated onto the ISS, receiving a warm greeting by the seven members of the station's current Expedition 71 crew. They were welcomed by the ringing of a bell (an ISS tradition), music and zero gravity "dancing" as the pair floated around the Harmony module, hugging their new crewmates.
"Wow, great to be back here," Wilmore said during a welcome ceremony. "Obviously, we certainly have been gone for a little while, but it's very familiar." Both Wilmore and Williams have flown to the space station before on previous missions.
"There's only one problem," Wilmore added as he turned to NASA astronaut Matt Dominick on the Expedition 71 crew. "Matt is in my crew quarters. I don't know what we're gonna do about that. But thank you all for the great welcome."
WATCH Starliner docking and crew arrival on the space station
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Boeing Starliner capsule, CST-100(named Calypso) lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance(ULA)'s Atlas V rocket at 1452 UTC Wednesday, from Space Launch Complex(SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Aboard Calypso are veteran NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, both former U.S. Navy test pilots with 11,000 flight hours between them. They're headed to the International Space Station(ISS).
"We all know that when the going gets tough, as it often does, the tough get going, and you all have," Wilmore said while waiting on the pad for liftoff. "Let's get going, let's put some fire in this rocket. "
"Let's go Calyspo, take us to space and back," Williams said just minutes before launch.
This is Starliner's first crewed flight test(CFT-1) following last uncrewed flight that docked with the ISS in May 2022. This was also the first time astronauts have launched atop an Atlas V in its 22-year flight history.
Wilmore and Williams are hard at work performing initial tests on the Starliner spacecraft in orbit as they head to the space station.
Wilmore is conducting a series of manual flight control tests to see how Starliner performs under astronaut control. Calypso is scheduled to rendezvous with the space station on Thursday (June 6) around 1615 UTC. Both astronauts will be putting the spacecraft through a series of tests toward operational crew certification. Boeing and NASA have about 85 different demonstrations and test to perform over the course of their one-week flight.
"It's really a big checkout day," Steve Stich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, said in a statement. "And really ,the purpose of this is to learn what we can about Starliner."
Wednesday's CFT comes after weeks of delays and scrubbed attempts. Starliner was originally scheduled to lift off on May 6. On its first uncrewed mission, called Orbital Flight Test (OFT), Starliner never reached the ISS as planned in December 2019.
CFT aims to check out Starliner thoroughly ahead of certifying the spacecraft for longer missions. Williams and Wilmore will do some manual flying, test emergency scenarios like losing communications or power, and do a lot of debriefing to ensure that future Starliner crews know what to expect.
If all goes well on CFT, Starliner will carry its first astronaut crew for about six months to the ISS, perhaps as early as 2025. Starliner-1, that first operational flight, will carry NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Scott Tingle along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Josh Kutryk. The Starliner-1 crew is already deep in training, and Fincke served as backup for CFT as well.
Wednesday's launch brings NASA within reach of a goal it set more than a decade ago: getting two American commercial vehicles up and running for astronaut missions to the ISS.
The funding in 2006 of the commercial cargo program, nurtured the development of SpaceX's cargo Dragon and Northrop Grumman's Cygnus vehicle, both of which have been flying robotic resupply missions to the ISS for more than a decade; and will soon send Sierra Space's Dream Chaser to space as well. The success of the program helped NASA award its first commercial crew contracts in 2010, collectively totaling $50 million (worth about $72 million in 2024 dollars) to five companies.
The quintet included Blue Origin, Boeing, Paragon Space Development Corp., Sierra Nevada (now Sierra Space) and ULA, each of which received support under CCDev-1 (Commercial Crew Development-1) for several human spaceflight technologies. ULA's funding helped certify the Atlas V for human missions.
SpaceX has sent 12 crewed missions to the ISS to date, including the 63-day Demo-2 test flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley in 2020.
As the space station is expected to be in operation until at least 2030, the plan going forward is for three different spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from the orbiting lab.
Aside from Dragon and Starliner, Russia will continue to send cosmonaut-led crews using its Soyuz spacecraft until at least 2028, when the nation's commitment to the partnership is scheduled to expire. The ISS partners want as many backups as possible in case of technical problems with any one spacecraft.
WATCH Boeing first crewed flight test mission to the ISS.