Butch Wilmore, Mike Fincke and
Suni Williams are all military test pilots and NASA astronauts, and they’re eager for Boeing's new spacecraft to prove itself so they can climb aboard.
NASA held a press conference May 18
a day before the planned launch of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on a crucial uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station
Agency leaders, including
NASA associate administrator Bob Cabana and human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders, were joined by the three astronauts
The coming mission,
called Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2), is scheduled to launch Thursday (May 19) at 6:54 p.m. EDT (2254 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida
The redundancy will complement
the capabilities of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, which have already launched four NASA crews to the ISS
Boeing and SpaceX
both hold NASA contracts to fly astronauts to and from the space station,