NASA is shaking things up for its next mission to research the sun.

The six satellites of NASA's Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) mission are poised to launch to Earth orbit soon, to serve as an early warning system for incoming solar storms. They were originally slated to lift off on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket but have now been assigned a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, according to a NASA mission update.

SunRISE will fly to space as part of a rideshare mission sponsored by the U.S. Space Force's (USSF's) Space Systems Command (SSC). Though it's not stated specifically in the NASA release, that may be a hint as to why the mission's rocket was changed. On its most recent launch, USSF-87, Vulcan experienced an anomaly in one of its solid rocket boosters — the second such incident to occur during the rocket's four launches to date.

Vulcan succeeded in delivering the USSF-87 payload to its designated orbit on that launch, but the recurrence of the booster issue during ascent prompted the Space Force to pause national security launches on Vulcan until it could be addressed. Which mission SunRISE will be manifested on has not yet been released, but SSC has already shifted other launches between Vulcan and SpaceX's Falcon 9, so NASA's change in rockets for SunRISE could indicate either that the mission has been remanifested on a different SSC rideshare, or that another SSC mission has been shifted from Vulcan entirely.

SunRISE is a heliophysics study under the NASA Science Mission Directorate's "missions of opportunity" umbrella and is part of the Explorers Program run by Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. It consists of six small satellites, each about the size of a mailbox. The mini-constellation's mission is led by scientists at the University of Michigan and will be managed out of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

The half-dozen smallsats will be delivered to an orbit about 22,000 miles (35,000 kilometers) above Earth — just above a geostationary parking altitude — and fly in a giant 10-mile (16-km) "X" formation, each extending its roughly 10-foot (2.5-meter) antenna booms to act as a single large radio telescope to track solar radio bursts. These kinds of bursts travel faster than the energetic particles from a solar storm, and precede their arrival when shot towards Earth.

Powerful solar storms, like the one that hit Earth in January, are capable of disrupting or disabling satellites by interfering with onboard electronics, sensitive instruments and communications systems. If a storm is severe enough, it can pose a radiation threat to astronauts in orbit and even airborne passengers flying near Earth's poles, where the planet's magnetic field is weaker.

SunRISE will help researchers better understand the behavior of incoming solar radio bursts, but the mission won't serve as an alert system by itself. Instead, scientists will use data collected by the spacecraft to improve prediction models for impending space weather, which in turn could lead to mitigation plans to better thwart the effects of such solar events on orbital infrastructure.

Falcon Heavy is SpaceX's heavy-lift launch vehicle, capable of launching up to 58,860 pounds (26,700 kg) to geostationary transfer orbit. It's a triple-booster rocket that consists of three modified Falcon 9 first stages, and has launched 12 times since it debuted in 2018. Four of those have delivered national security payloads to orbit, with the most recent of those, USSF-52, launching in December 2023. Falcon Heavy's most recent flight overall occurred this past April, when it sent the Viasat-3 F3 telecom satellite to orbit.

Falcon Heavy's next mission will lift off with NASA's Nancy Roman Space Telescope, currently set for no earlier than Aug. 30. SunRISE is scheduled to launch later this year, but a more specific launch window has not yet been announced.

NASA's plan to return astronauts to the moon and bolster a rapidly growing commercial space industry is facing an infrastructure obstacle.

A new report from NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) warns that launch facilities at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia are approaching capacity as demand accelerates across the agency and the private sector. Support infrastructure — such as roads, electricity, and gas and fuel pipelines that laid the foundation for KSC's network of launch pads built to support the Apollo program in the 1960s — are being increasingly stretched by the demands of NASA's Artemis missions, SpaceX, Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance (ULA) and other users.

"Based on current launch projections, Kennedy and Wallops are expected to operate near capacity in the 2028 to 2029 time frame," states the report, which was released on Monday (June 22). Though it credits NASA for already taking steps to address these issues, agency officials estimate it will take at least $1 billion to complete all the necessary upgrades, of which only $250 million was provided as part of NASA's funds allocated in last year's 2025 H.R.1 reconciliation bill.

On Florida's Space Coast, the assessment encompasses launch facilities at KSC as well as Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), which saw an increase of NASA-supported launches from 31 in 2020 to 109 in 2025, according to the report. Wallops, where there are fewer and smaller launch pads, doesn't traditionally see as many missions compared to KSC. But the Virginia site has experienced an even sharper jump, percentage-wise, over the same timeframe — from three launches in 2020 to 17 in 2025 (a 467% rise). By 2030, NASA expects traffic at both sites to increase by another 150% or so. And NASA officials told auditors that raw launch counts don't fully capture the strain on infrastructure, because launch campaigns require days or weeks of support activity before liftoff.

The report outlines launch infrastructure shortcomings at both facilities, but notes that Wallops' challenges have been partially mitigated by recent upgrades across its seven active launch sites. Wallops generally hosts small and medium-lift launch vehicles, like Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket and Rocket Lab's Electron, but has taken steps to support Rocket Lab's upcoming Neutron, as well as Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket, which is expected to launch from the site sometime this year.

The major launch pads in question at KSC and CCSFS include Launch Complex-39A (LC-39A) and LC-39B, used by SpaceX and NASA, respectively; Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40), also used by SpaceX; SLC-41, used by ULA's Atlas and Vulcan rockets; and SLC-36, used by Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.

SpaceX has transitioned to launching its Falcon 9 rocket primarily from SLC-40 and has reserved LC-39A for Falcon Heavy launches while construction of the first Florida launch tower for its Starship rocket is underway at the same pad. SpaceX hopes to start launching Starship from this pad before the end of 2026.

The company also has plans for a second Space Coast pad for Starship, at SLC-37. Once Starship, which is still under development at SpaceX's Starbase, Texas, facility, becomes fully operational, the company expects up to 44 launches a year from KSC, with an additional 76 launches per year projected from SLC-37 at CCSFS. That equals about one Starship launch every eight days for LC-39A, but a higher cadence will be needed to successfully support NASA's Artemis program.

Artemis missions utilize NASA's Orion spacecraft to transport astronauts from the Earth to the moon, and the agency has contracted Starship, as well as Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander, to be the program's crewed lunar landers. All of these vehicles require heavy-lift rockets.

Orion launches on NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from LC-39B. For Artemis 4, currently scheduled for 2028, NASA plans to dock Orion with Starship in Earth orbit, and use Starship to propel the two spacecraft to orbit around the moon. Starship will then undock from Orion, carry a set of astronauts down to the lunar surface, and then launch them back to orbit around the moon to rendezvous and dock again with Orion.

To accomplish this, Starship will require at least 15 refueling flights to top off its tanks before its initial burn for the moon, which would fly in addition to the company's projected eight-day launch cadence, according to the report.

Growing demand for heavy-lift rockets is also increasing pressure to find additional launch sites. Blue Moon is designed to launch on New Glenn, and will also require refueling launches to reach the moon. Setting aside the fact that New Glenn recently exploded during a fueling test that severely damaged SLC-36, the report indicates that Blue Origin officials have told NASA that the pad alone may not provide sufficient long-term capacity and resiliency for the company's future plans, and noted that the constraints have already forced the company to delay launches.

Much of the infrastructure between KSC and CCSFS facilities is considered "common-use," the report says, which puts added stress on available resources shared across different launch providers. That includes a massive electrical grid; 231 miles (372 kilometers) of roadway, much of which was paved in the 1960s without consideration for the weight and frequency of super heavy rocket stages being transported to and from launch pads; and more than 40 miles (64 km) of gaseous pipeline supporting nitrogen (GN2) and helium distribution, which is unable to supply high-flow operations from multiple users in its current state.

"This issue created a major scheduling challenge during preparation for the New Glenn-1 mission that launched in January 2025," the report says. It also anticipates further Artemis mission launch constraints if the issue is not addressed.

Artemis 3, targeted for 2027, will require launches of SLS, New Glenn and multiple Starships all within a small handful of days. The mission will see both private landers — if they're both ready — rendezvous with Orion to practice docking maneuvers in low Earth orbit over the course of about two weeks, but the OIG report calls the feasibility of those back-to-back launches into question.

"Kennedy will be unable to provide GN2 for future Space Launch System launches for Artemis from LC 39B while simultaneously supporting Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle launching from Space Launch Complex 36 at CCSFS," the report says. It projects a possible one- to two-month blackout period of GN2 availability as a result of future SLS launches.

The report further found that NASA has struggled to maintain and modernize its launch infrastructure, partially due to declining maintenance budgets and poor funding structures that prevent an equitable recoupment of costs from commercial providers leasing the launch facilities. "Significant statutory funding barriers prevent the Agency from receiving money directly from commercial partners for use of the Agency’s launch infrastructure," the report says. And, as it currently stands, any commercial investment in NASA's infrastructure is deducted from the agency's budget appropriation, in addition to being a violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the agency from spending federal funds without Congressional approval.

Ultimately, the report recommends prioritizing improvements to NASA's transportation networks, utility systems and resource distribution infrastructure while exploring additional funding mechanisms to support future upgrades. It also suggests three key action items for the space agency:

1. Perform an assessment and create a mitigation strategy to address roadway degradation caused by the increased traffic from heavy-lift launch vehicle transportation and commercial providers.
2. Prioritize the allocation of available funds for the maintenance of common-use launch infrastructure, including roads, electricity distribution, and gaseous pipelines and resource reserves.
3. Explore alternative funding mechanisms and evaluate commercial partnership policies to charge an "Other Approved Indirect Rate" to contribute to upgrades necessary to maintain the aforementioned infrastructure.

"While NASA’s goal is to renew — replace, repair, or upgrade — its infrastructure every 66 years, the current renewal rate, based on the available budget, is over 260 years," the report says.

SpaceX launched a new GPS satellite for the U.S. Space Force early Tuesday morning (April 21) — a mission that was originally supposed to fly on a competitor's rocket.

A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the GPS III SV10 satellite lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday at 2:53 a.m. EDT (0653 GMT).

GPS III SV10 (short for "Space Vehicle 10") is the 10th and final satellite in the United States' advanced GPS III line.

"GPS III satellites have a three-fold increase in positional accuracy and an eight-fold improvement in jam resistance compared to prior versions," Space Force officials said in a statement on Jan. 28, just after GPS III SV09 rode a Falcon 9 to orbit.

"These advanced features enable the constellation to provide an across-the-board boost in effectiveness and lethality to weapon systems in every theater," they added.

GPS III SV10 was originally supposed to fly aboard United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket. Last month, however, the Space Force announced that it was switching the satellite to a Falcon 9 due to issues that Vulcan has experienced with its solid rocket boosters (SRBs).

As part of this rocket swap, Vulcan Centaur will now launch the USSF-70 national security mission, which had been slated to fly on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. USSF-70 is expected to launch no earlier than summer 2028, Space Force officials have said. (Presumably, Vulcan Centaur's SRB issues will be worked out by then.)

The Falcon 9's first stage came back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after launch as planned on Tuesday, touching down softly in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX droneship "Just Read the Instructions."

It was the seventh launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. And it was the final Falcon landing for "Just Read the Instructions," SpaceX said during Tuesday's launch commentary; the droneship will now pivot to supporting liftoffs of SpaceX's Starship megarocket.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued powering its way to medium-Earth orbit. It will deploy GPS III SV10 there about 90 minutes after liftoff.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 1:15 a.m. ET on April 20 with the new target launch date of April 21. It was updated again at 3:04 a.m. ET on April 21 with news of successful launch and rocket landing.

The U.S. Space Force has swapped rockets for an upcoming GPS satellite launch.

Next month's GPS III-8 mission had been slated to fly atop United Launch Alliance (ULA)'s new Vulcan Centaur rocket. But Vulcan has experienced issues with its solid rocket boosters (SRBs), so the Space Force is moving the GPS spacecraft onto a SpaceX Falcon 9.

"With this change, we are answering the call for rapid delivery of advanced GPS capability while the Vulcan anomaly investigation continues," Space Force Col. Ryan Hiserote, Space Systems Command System Delta 80 commander and National Security Space Launch system program director, said in a statement today (March 20).

"We are once again demonstrating our team's flexibility and are fully committed to leverage all options available for responsive and reliable launch for the nation," Hiserote added.

Vulcan Centaur, the successor to ULA's workhorse Atlas V rocket, debuted in January 2024 and has flown three more times since. An SRB anomaly cropped up on two of those four flights — Vulcan's national security payload certification launch in October 2024 and the USSF-87 mission for the Space Force last month.

Vulcan overcame the problem both times, successfully reaching orbit and notching its mission goals. But the Space Force was concerned enough that, in late February, it announced it would pause Vulcan national security flights until an investigation into the glitches was complete.

So today's news about the GPS III-8 mission is not terribly surprising. If all goes to plan, the satellite — the 10th and final one in the GPS III line — will lift off no earlier than late April from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Vulcan Centaur, in return, will launch USSF-70, a national security mission that had been manifested on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. USSF-70 will fly no earlier than summer 2028, according to Space Force officials.

ULA is doubtless working hard to finish the anomaly investigation and be allowed to resume national security launches. After all, the Space Force is one of Vulcan's biggest customers, having booked more than two dozen launches on the rocket over the next several years.

The U.S. Space Force is halting all national security launches on Vulcan Centaur rockets after a booster malfunction reoccurred during the vehicle's most recent mission.

United Launch Alliance (ULA)'s new Vulcan Centaur rocket debuted in January 2024 and now has four launches under its belt. On two of those missions, Vulcan suffered an anomaly in one of its solid rocket boosters during flight. Although the rocket's core-stage engines managed to compensate both times, leading to overall mission success, the reoccurrence has raised eyebrows at the Space Force, which is pressing pause on the Vulcan missions it has lined up until ULA can get to the bottom of things.

"This is going to be a many-months process as we work through the exact technical issue that happened and the corrective actions we need to make sure, we need to take, to make sure this doesn’t happen again," Space Force Col. Eric Zarybnisky said during a media round robin during the Air Force Association’s Warfare Symposium on Feb. 25, as reported by Breaking Defense.

Vulcan's latest launch occurred on Feb. 12. That national security mission, known as USSF-87, carried two reconnaissance satellites for the United States' Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP). About 20 seconds after liftoff, one of Vulcan's four solid rocket boosters suffered a visible anomaly, but it was corrected for by Vulcan's two BE-4 first-stage engines.

Both satellites were delivered safely to a geosynchronous transfer orbit, where they were successfully deployed to assume a seemingly stationary position above Earth.

Vulcan experienced a similar issue in October 2024, during its national security payload certification launch. On that flight, a manufacturing defect caused on one of the solid rocket booster nozzles to fall off, and the vehicle to veer temporarily off course. It's unclear what exactly happened on the more recent USSF-87 mission; ULA's investigation is still ongoing.

“We are going to work through this anomaly until we launch again on Vulcan,” Zarybnisky told reporters on Feb. 25, according to Breaking Defense. "Until this anomaly is solved we will not be launching Vulcan missions."

ULA has booked its Vulcan Centaur rocket for more than two dozen national security launches over the next several years, so the temporary grounding could be a significant disruption for ULA during an already tumultuous time. Longtime ULA CEO Tory Bruno resigned from the company at the end of 2025 and accepted a position as president of national security at ULA competitor Blue Origin (which also makes Vulcan's BE-4 engines).

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket can certainly overcome adversity.

The Vulcan Centaur launched for the fourth time ever on Thursday morning (Feb. 12), carrying two spy satellites aloft for the U.S. Space Force from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Things went well, but there was a hiccup along the way.

"Early during flight, the team observed a significant performance anomaly on one of the four solid rocket motors. Despite the observation, the Vulcan booster and Centaur [upper stage] performed nominally and delivered the spacecraft directly to geosynchronous orbit," Gary Wentz, ULA vice president of Atlas and Vulcan Programs, said in an emailed statement after the launch.

"The integrated U.S. government and contractor team is reviewing the technical data, available imagery, and establishing a recovery team to collect any debris," Wentz added. "We will conduct a thorough investigation, identify root cause, and implement any corrective action necessary before the next Vulcan mission."

Vulcan Centaur is the successor to ULA's workhorse Atlas V rocket. It consists of the Vulcan core stage, Centaur upper stage and up to six strap-on solid rocket boosters (SRBs), which are built by the aerospace company Northrop Grumman.

The new rocket debuted in January 2024 with the launch of the private Peregrine lunar lander. Vulcan Centaur did its job that day, but Peregrine suffered an anomaly after deployment and ended up crashing back to Earth.

Vulcan flew for the second time in October 2024, on a test flight designed to get it certified for U.S. national security missions. The rocket experienced an anomaly with one of its two SRBs less than 40 seconds into that flight, causing it to veer slightly. But the Vulcan Centaur adjusted and overcame the problem, reaching its desired orbit.

ULA declared the mission a success but still performed an investigation, which found that the SRB's nozzle fell off during flight due to a manufacturing defect.

The Space Force certified Vulcan Centaur for U.S. national security missions in March 2025. The rocket performed its first such flight that August, successfully delivering an experimental navigation satellite to geosynchronous orbit, which lies 22,236 miles (35,785 kilometers) above Earth.

It's too soon to tell what caused this latest SRB issue and how the anomaly will affect Vulcan Centaur operations going forward. We'll have to wait for the results of ULA's investigation, which the Space Force will be following with interest.

The military's System Delta 80 team at Cape Canaveral "will work closely with ULA per our mission assurance space flightworthiness process before the next Vulcan national security space mission," Space Force officials said in an emailed statement after Thursday's launch.

A Vulcan Centaur rocket launched a pair of space surveillance satellites for the U.S. military early Thursday morning (Feb. 12).

The Vulcan Centaur lifted off Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 4:22 a.m. EST (0922 GMT), kicking off the USSF-87 mission for the U.S. Space Force (USSF).

USSF-87's primary payloads were two satellites for the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP), a U.S. reconnaissance system.

Six GSSAP spacecraft had reached the final frontier before today — two apiece on launches in July 2014, August 2016 and January 2022. These satellites, which are built by Northrop Grumman, operate high above Earth, keeping a close eye on activities in geostationary orbit (GEO).

GEO lies 22,236 miles (35,785 kilometers) above Earth. At that altitude, orbital speed matches our planet's rotational speed, allowing satellites to "hover" over a particular patch of land or sea continuously. For that reason, GEO is a popular destination for weather, reconnaissance and communications satellites.

The GSSAP spacecraft operate "as a high-performance, dedicated Space Surveillance Network sensor," Space Force officials said in an emailed statement about the USSF-87 mission on Monday (Feb. 10). "They provide 'neighborhood watch' services in the geostationary Earth arena, improving flight safety for all spacefaring nations operating in that orbit."

Better information about the position and activities of satellites "within the increasingly crowded GEO drastically speeds USSF space operators' ability to warn others if another object is anticipated to approach too closely or creates a hazardous situation," they added. "Data from the GSSAP will uniquely contribute to timely and accurate orbital predictions, enhancing our knowledge of the GEO environment and further enabling spaceflight safety, including satellite collision avoidance."

The Vulcan Centaur successfully delivered the two GSSAP satellites to their designated orbit on USSF-87 despite suffering an anomaly with one of its four solid rocket boosters (SRBs), ULA said in an emailed statement after launch.

Also going up on USSF-87 were some research and development payloads, which will aid the precision of orbital maneuvers and improve the resilience of U.S. assets in GEO, among other functions, according to the Space Force statement.

USSF-87 was the fourth mission for the 202-foot-tall (61-meter) Vulcan Centaur, ULA's replacement for its workhorse Atlas V rocket.

Vulcan debuted in January 2024, sending Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander aloft. The launch went well, but Peregrine suffered an anomaly shortly after deployment and ended up crashing back to Earth.

Vulcan Centaur flew again in October 2024, on a successful mission that also overcame an SRB anomaly, and then again in August 2025. That latter launch was the rocket's first national security mission; it successfully sent an experimental navigation satellite to GEO for the Space Force.

The August 2025 mission employed the most powerful version of the Vulcan Centaur to date — one with four SRBs strapped to the core stage. USSF-87 used that same variant, which is known as the VC4S. The Vulcan can accommodate up to six SRBs.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:30 p.m. ET on Feb. 12 with news of the SRB anomaly and successful satellite deployment.

It's official: Tory Bruno, the longtime chief of the launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA) has joined the competition.

Bruno, who led ULA for nearly 12 years and oversaw the development of that company's new Vulcan rocket, has joined Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos. Bruno will oversee a newly formed National Security Group at Blue Origin, the company said on Dec. 26.

"Welcome to Blue Origin, Tory Bruno," Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp wrote on social media during the announcement. "We share a deep belief in supporting our nation with the best technology we can build. Tory brings unmatched experience, and I’m confident he’ll accelerate our ability to deliver on that mission."

Bruno served as ULA president and CEO since 2014 and watched over the retirement of that company's Delta family of rockets. ULA is a collaborative project by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Bruno also led the company as ULA developed its new Vulcan Centaur rocket, which uses Blue Origin's BE-4 rocket engines on its first stage and is designed to be the company's new workhorse booster.

At Blue Origin, Bruno will apparently oversee the company's national security projects for its massive New Glenn rocket. Blue Origin launched its first two New Glenn rockets in 2025, and successfully landed the first stage of the new booster during a November mission that also launched NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes. The company aims to fly U.S. national security missions alongside flights for commercial and civilian government customers.

"We are going to bring important, innovative, and urgently needed capabilities to our Nation," Bruno wrote on social media. "Can’t wait to get started."

Jeff Bezos welcomed Bruno into the Blue Origin fold with a hearty post on social media.

"Welcome, Tory. Gradatim Ferociter!" Bezos wrote, using Blue Origin's Latin motto "Step by Step, Ferociously."

"Thanks, Jeff," Bruno replied. "We are going to do important work together."

After nearly 12 years leading the United Launch Alliance (ULA), its chief Tory Bruno is stepping down from the U.S. rocket launch provider to pursue "another opportunity," the company announced this week.

What's that new opportunity? We're not sure yet, but it's guaranteed to be "Something interesting," Bruno wrote on social media after the Dec. 22 announcement.

Bruno took the reigns as ULA president and CEO in August 2014, overseeing the company, a collaboration between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, as it launched its Atlas V rockets and retired its Delta rocket family. He oversaw the development of new booster, the Vulcan Centaur rocket, which ULA plans to use as a workhorse vehicle.

During Bruno's term, ULA fought to contend with launch competitor SpaceX, which successfully landed a Falcon 9 booster for the first time in 2015 to lower costs through reusability. SpaceX now regularly launches and lands Falcon 9 rockets and has flown over 160 times this year. ULA eventually hopes to recover and reuse only part of the Vulcan rocket, its BE-4 first stage engines built by Blue Origin.

"It has been a great privilege to lead ULA through its transformation and to bring Vulcan into service. My work here is now complete and I will be cheering ULA on," Bruno wrote on X.

"Finished the mission I came to do," he added. "Great people. Great rocket. New things coming."

In a statement, Robert Lightfoot and Kay Sears, the ULA board chairs for Lockheed Martin and Boeing, respectively, thanked Bruno for over a decade of service.

"We are grateful for Tory’s service to ULA and the country, and we thank him for his leadership," Lightfoot and Sears wrote in the statement.

ULA's board has appointed Boeing veteran John Elbon as interim CEO as the search for a new leader begins.

"We have the greatest confidence in John to continue strengthening ULA’s momentum while the board proceeds with finding the next leader of ULA," Lihtfoot and Sears wrote.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) sent another batch of Amazon's internet satellites to orbit on Tuesday morning (Dec. 16).

A ULA Atlas V rocket carrying 27 Amazon Leo spacecraft lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday at 3:28 a.m. EST (0828 GMT).

Amazon Leo, previously known as Project Kuiper, is Amazon's planned satellite-internet megaconstellation in low Earth orbit (LEO).

The network will eventually consist of about 3,200 satellites, which will reach orbit on more than 80 launches performed by a variety of rockets. Six of those missions had been completed before Tuesday, lofting 153 Project Leo satellites to the final frontier. (Those numbers don't count a test mission that carried two prototype satellites to LEO in October 2023.)

Tuesday's launch was the fourth Project Leo mission for the Atlas V, a venerable and highly dependable rocket that debuted in August 2002. ULA is phasing out the Atlas V in favor of a new vehicle called Vulcan Centaur, which has three missions under its belt to date.

All went according to plan on Tuesday: the 27 Amazon Leo satellites were deployed on schedule, during a 15-minute stretch beginning about 20 minutes after liftoff. We didn't get to see that milestone, however; ULA cut off its webcast about five minutes into the flight.

When it's up and running, Project Leo will beam internet connectitvity down to people around the globe. It will compete with SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation, which already provides service to customers using more than 9,000 satellites in LEO. And that number is growing all the time; SpaceX has launched more than 3,000 Starlink satellites so far in 2025 alone.

Interestingly, SpaceX is helping to build out the Project Leo network; its Falcon 9 is among the rockets that Amazon has tapped to launch the megaconstellation, along with Arianespace's Ariane 6, Blue Origin's New Glenn and ULA's Atlas V and Vulcan Centaur.

Editor's note: This article was updated Dec. 15, at 9:45 a.m. EST (1445 GMT) to reflect the most recent launch window availability, then again at 3:37 a.m. EST on Dec. 16 with news of successful liftoff, then again at 11:40 a.m. EST with news of satellite deployment.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) launched a big and powerful telecom satellite to orbit on Thursday night (Nov. 13).

ViaSat-3 F2, which weighs about 13,000 pounds (5,900 kilograms), lifted off atop an Atlas V rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday at 10:04 p.m. EST (0304 GMT on Nov. 14).

If all goes according to plan, the Atlas V will deploy ViaSat-3 F2 into geostationary transfer orbit about 3.5 hours after liftoff. The satellite will then spend several months making its way to geostationary orbit (GEO), a circular path that lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth.

At this altitude, orbital speed matches our planet's rotational speed. Satellites in GEO therefore "hover" over the same patch of Earth continuously, making it a popular destination for spy and communications craft.

ViaSat-3 F2 is expected to start beaming broadband service to customers in early 2026. As its name suggests, it will be the second ViaSat-3 satellite to do so, after ViaSat-3 F1, which launched atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in April 2023. A third such craft is expected to launch next year, rounding out the ViaSat-3 constellation.

Each ViaSat-3 satellite is "designed to be capable of rapidly shifting capacity throughout its coverage area to deliver bandwidth where and when it’s needed most," Viasat, a California-based telecom company, wrote in a description of the mini constellation.

"This is important to meet the increasing demand of commercial, consumer and defense customers, where the location of high-demand hotspots can change over the course of the day," the company added.

According to that description, ViaSat-3 F1 provides connectivity primarily to airline passengers. ViaSat-3 F2 will "add more than 1 Tbps capacity to our network over the Americas," and ViaSat-3 F3 will do the same for the Asia-Pacific region.

ViaSat-3 F2 was originally supposed to launch on Nov. 5, but ULA scrubbed that attempt due to an issue with a vent valve in an Atlas V liquid oxygen tank. The same problem recurred on Nov. 6, causing another scrub.

The Atlas V has flown more than 100 missions since its 2002 debut, but its days are numbered. ULA plans to retire the workhorse rocket in 2030 or thereabouts and has already fielded a replacement — the Vulcan Centaur, which has three launches under its belt to date.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 11:15 p.m. EST on Nov. 5 with news of the new target launch date of Nov. 6. It was updated again at 10:10 p.m. T on Nov. 6 with news of that day's launch scrub. It was updated again at 11:15 a.m. ET on Nov. 12 with the new launch date of Nov. 13. It was updated again at 10:15 p.m. ET on Nov. 13 with news of successful liftoff.

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket will conduct its first-ever national security launch next week, if all goes according to plan.

ULA announced on Tuesday (Aug. 5) that it's targeting Aug. 12 for USSF-106, a U.S. Space Force mission that will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

"This is the first national security space launch aboard the certified Vulcan rocket. The Vulcan rocket will deploy the USSF-106 mission directly to geosynchronous (GEO) orbit using the high-performance Centaur V upper stage," ULA said via X on Tuesday.

Vulcan Centaur — the replacement for ULA's venerable Atlas V rocket — has two flights under its belt to date, both of which have been successful.

The first one, which flew in January 2024, sent Astrobotic's robotic Peregrine moon lander to Earth orbit. (Peregrine suffered a crippling anomaly shortly after it deployed from the rocket's Centaur upper stage and ended up crashing back to Earth.)

Vulcan's second flight, in October 2024, was a test mission that flew with an inert mass simulator as a payload. The mass simulator took the place of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser space plane, the originally planned payload, which wasn't ready in time for the launch.

Vulcan powered through a problem on that second flight — the failure of of an engine nozzle on one of its two solid rocket boosters (SRBs). Its performance on those two missions impressed the Space Force enough to certify Vulcan Centaur for national security missions, a huge milestone for ULA that was announced in March.

The decision doubled the number of currently certified U.S. national security launch providers; SpaceX had been the only company that could loft such payloads. (ULA's Atlas V launched many national security missions over the years, but no such payloads are on its docket ahead of its retirement in 2030 or so.)

"Assured access to space is a core function of the Space Force and a critical element of national security," Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, the Space Force's program executive officer for assured access to space, said in a statement in late March. "Vulcan certification adds launch capacity, resiliency and flexibility needed by our nation's most critical space-based systems."

Private spaceflight continues its upward trajectory.

American companies launched 21 commercial space missions in June 2025, which was a new record for a single month, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The old record of 20 was set in November 2024.

"Operations during the record month include 21 launches conducted by four operators: Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance," FAA officials said in an emailed statement.

"These occurred in California, Florida, Texas and New Zealand, and involved orbital, suborbital and commercial human spaceflight missions," they added. (California-based Rocket Lab's primary launch site is on New Zealand's North Island.)

SpaceX was by far the busiest of the four operators, launching 15 of the month's 21 missions. Twelve of those 15 flights were devoted to building out the company's Starlink broadband megaconstellation in low Earth orbit.

June continued a very active 2025 for SpaceX, which has launched 81 missions so far this year. The company is therefore on pace to break its single-year record of 134 orbital liftoffs, which was set in 2024. (Those numbers don't count the suborbital test flights of SpaceX's new Starship megarocket, which launched four times in 2024 and has flown three times so far this year.)

SpaceX was also responsible for one of June's two human spaceflight missions — Ax-4, which sent four private astronauts toward the International Space Station on June 25.

The month's other crewed mission was NS-33, a suborbital tourist flight by Blue Origin that launched and landed on June 29.

Amazon's second big batch of internet satellites has taken flight.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (June 23) at 6:54 a.m. EDT (1054 GMT), carrying 27 spacecraft for Amazon's Project Kuiper constellation toward low Earth orbit (LEO).

The launch came a week later than originally planned; it had been scheduled for June 16 but was delayed by an Atlas V engine issue.

An Atlas V also launched the first batch of Kuiper craft, sending 27 of them aloft from Cape Canaveral on April 28 (as well as two prototype Kuiper satellites, which flew in October 2023).

And there will be many more such liftoffs. The Project Kuiper constellation will eventually consist of more than 3,200 satellites, which will go up on about 80 more launches in the coming years.

ULA will do most of the lifting; Amazon booked eight Atlas V launches and 38 rides on its replacement, the Vulcan Centaur. But Project Kuiper satellites will also fly on rockets built by SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and European launch provider Arianespace.

"Those agreements comprise the largest commercial procurement of launch capacity in history, and support thousands of suppliers and highly skilled jobs across the U.S. and Europe," Amazon wrote in a Project Kuiper description.

The company hopes to start providing internet service with the constellation later this year.

Project Kuiper will compete with SpaceX's Starlink, which already provides service to customers around the world using more than 7,600 operational satellites in LEO.

Starlink is the largest satellite constellation ever assembled, and it's growing all the time; SpaceX has already launched 55 Starlink missions this year alone.

And these aren't the only two broadband projects underway in LEO. For example, China has already launched spacecraft for two different megaconstellations, Guowang ("National Network") and Qianfan ("Thousand Sails"). Both of these networks will feature more than 10,000 satellites, if all goes according to plan.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) is set to launch Amazon's second group of satellites for its Kuiper internet satellite constellation today (June 16), and you can watch the action live.

The 27 satellites, riding atop a ULA Atlas V rocket, are scheduled to lift off at 1:25 p.m. EDT (1725 GMT) today from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin 20 minutes before liftoff.

The forecast calls for a 75%  chance of acceptable weather conditions, with cumulus cloud cover being the primary concern (as of the time this article was published).

Should all proceed to plan, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket's two RD-180 engines and five side-mounted solid rocket boosters will power the first one minute and 46 seconds of flight. The boosters will then separate, followed by the jettison of the fairing that shields the Kuiper satellites at three minutes after launch.

The RD-180 engines will cut off at about 4 minutes, 23 seconds, and then the booster and upper stage will separate. A Centaur engine will thrust the satellites the rest of the way into orbit, cutting off at 18 minutes.

The Atlas V rocket, flying in its 551 configuration, is outfitted with a medium-length protective fairing and five solid rocket boosters.

Amazon describes the goal of its Project Kuiper as "to deliver fast, reliable internet to customers and communities around the world." Amazon's first launch of 27 satellites in April. also on an Atlas V, began the network, which aims to have more than 3,200 satellites in low Earth orbit after 83 launches on the Atlas V, ULA's Vulcan, Blue Origin's New Glenn and Arianespace's Ariane 6 rockets.

The second big batch of Amazon's broadband satellites will take flight today (June 23), and you can watch the action live.

The stack of 27 satellites, part of Amazon's Project Kuiper constellation, is scheduled to launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket at 6:54 a.m. EDT (1054 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin about 25 minutes before liftoff.

Atlas V will launch the Kuiper satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO), where they will maneuver to join a small but growing constellation of satellites that will offer wireless, high-speed internet to customers within the fleet's range of operation.

The delivery of the Kuiper 2 satellites will double the size of Amazon's current constellation, to 54.

ULA launched the Kuiper 1 mission on April 28. The company called it a "new beginning" in a May 28 post that hinted that the launch date for Kuiper 2 was nearing.

Kuiper missions 1 and 2 are the first of 83 planned launches to help grow Amazon's Kuiper constellation. Not all of them will fly on the Atlas V, however; Amazon plans to launch batches of Kuiper satellites aboard ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket, Arianespace's Ariane 6 and Blue Origin's New Glenn.

The Project Kuiper constellation will eventually harbor more than 3,200 satellites, if all goes according to plan. That will still be far fewer than SpaceX's rival Starlink broadband constellation, which already provides service to customers around the world. Starlink currently consists of more than 7,600 operational satellites, and it's growing all the time.

But Amazon's internet architecture differs from that of Starlink, so the company may not need to rival SpaceX in sheer satellite numbers to provide comparable service. Project Kuiper will combine its LEO constellation with a global network of ground stations and on-Earth infrastructure running Amazon Web Services, according to Amazon's website.

The engineers of Project Kuiper are also focused on sustainability. Kuiper satellites are designed to minimize the risk of orbital debris, the company says. They are also working with astronomers on ways to reduce the satellites' visibility and interference with astronomical research and general stargazing.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 9 p.m. ET on June 22 with the new target launch date of June 23. ULA had previously aimed to launch the mission on June 16 but stood down from that attempt due to an engine issue with the Atlas V.

The assembly of Amazon's big new satellite-internet constellation is underway.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (April 28) at 7:01 p.m. EDT (2301 GMT), carrying 27 of Amazon's "Project Kuiper" broadband spacecraft toward low Earth orbit (LEO).

It was the first of more than 80 planned launches to build out the Project Kuiper megaconstellation, which will eventually harbor more than 3,200 spacecraft.

That's a big number, but it won't set a record; SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, which already beams service down to customers around the world, currently consists of more than 7,200 operational spacecraft.

And Starlink — perhaps Project Kuiper's biggest competitor — is growing all the time: SpaceX has launched 31 Starlink missions so far this year, with many more on the docket. In fact, there was a Starlink launch less than three hours before today's Atlas V launch, with another planned for less than four hours after.

Related: Starlink satellites: Facts, tracking and impact on astronomy

If all goes according to plan today, the Atlas V will deploy the 27 Project Kuiper satellites 280 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth. The spacecraft will then make their own way to their operational altitude of 392 miles (630 km).

"While the satellites complete the orbit-raising process, we will look ahead to our ultimate mission objective: providing end-to-end network connectivity," Amazon representatives wrote in a prelaunch statement.

"This involves sending data from the internet, through our ground infrastructure, up to the satellites, and down to customer terminal antennas, and then repeating the journey in the other direction," they added.

Project Kuiper is expected to begin providing coverage to customers later this year, according to Amazon.

Today's launch was the second overall for the Project Kuiper program. An Atlas V sent two prototype satellites to orbit in October 2023, on a test mission designed to prove out the company's technology and inform the design of the constellation's operational craft.

And there are considerable differences between those pioneering satellites and the ones that went up today.

"We have improved the performance of every system and subsystem on board, including phased array antennas, processors, solar arrays, propulsion systems and optical inter-satellite links," Amazon representatives said in the same statement.

"In addition, the satellites are coated in a dielectric mirror film unique to Kuiper that scatters reflected sunlight to help make them less visible to ground-based astronomers," they added.

Most of the remaining 80-plus launches will be performed by the Atlas V and its successor, ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket. Amazon has also signed launch deals with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, SpaceX and France-based Arianespace.

Today's launch was originally scheduled for April 9, but bad weather scuttled that try. ULA and Amazon then had to wait for a launch slot to open up on the Eastern Range, the Florida spaceport and testing site operated by the U.S. Space Force.

Amazon's first internet satellite fleet has a new launch date at last.

After weeks of delays, the first 27 satellites of Amazon's Project Kuiper internet constellation are scheduled to lift off atop an Atlas V rocket on April 28, the rocket's builder United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced over the weekend. Liftoff is set for 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

"This launch begins a new chapter in the commercial launch industry as Amazon partners with ULA to deliver the first batch of their advanced satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO)," ULA wrote on Friday afternoon (April 18).

The mission, called Kuiper 1, is the first of a planned 83 launches for Amazon's Project Kuiper broadband constellation, which aims to place more than 3,200 satellites in orbit to provide high-speed internet from space. While Kuiper 1 will fly on a beefy ULA-built Atlas V rocket, Amazon will also launch Kuiper batches on Arianespace's Ariane 6 rocket, ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket and Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. Amazon launched two prototype Kuiper satellites in 2023 to set the stage for the Kuiper 1 mission.

ULA first attempted to launch Kuiper 1 for Amazon on April 9, but was delayed by weather. The company then said it was waiting for an available slot on the Eastern Range (used for launches from Florida) from the U.S. Space Force.

"Range availability," ULA CEO Tory Bruno wrote on X when asked multiple times what was holding up the launch.

ULA has a two-hour launch window in which to launch Kuiper 1 for Amazon on April 28.

Amazon may be a whiz at fast online deliveries, but the massive company will have to wait to launch the first satellites of its new space internet constellation after bad weather thwarted a liftoff on Wednesday night.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket attempted to launch 27 of Amazon's first Project Kuiper internet satellites to orbit from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on April 9, but persistent clouds near the pad violated launch rules, ULA officials said.

"It is confirmed that we will not continue with the Amazon Project Kuiper 1 launch activities today," ULA launch commentator Caleb Weiss said during a livestream. "We will work with our partners at the U.S. Space Force Space Launch Delta 45 for the timing of our next launch opportunity."

Bad weather plagued ULA's launch attempt Amazon throughout a two-hour flight window that opened at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT). Launch controllers worked through some technical glitches, but were primarily concerned thick cumulus clouds and rain within 10 miles of the pad, which violated launch weather rules, ULA officials said.

Project Kuiper is Amazon's answer to SpaceX's megaconstellation of Starlink satellites to provide high-speed internet around the world. Amazon hopes to build a constellation of 3,200 broadband satellites in the years ahead to cement a foothold on the space-based internet market.

While ULA is launching these first Kuiper satellites, Amazon has tapped a wide range of launch services for the project, including flights on ULA's brand-new Vulcan Centaur rocket, Arianespace boosters, Blue Origin's New Glenn and SpaceX's Falcon rocket family.

In October 2023, Amazon launched two prototype Kuiper satellites on a test flight, paving the way to this first fave of the first operational satellite launches.

Amazon's first big batch of Project Kuiper broadband satellites will take flight today (April 28) after weeks of delay due to weather, and you can watch the action live.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch 27 Project Kuiper satellites from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today during a two-hour window that opens at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT). You can watch the liftoff live here at Space.com courtesy of ULA or directly via the company. Coverage will start at 6:35 p.m. EDT (2235 GMT).

An attempted launch on April 9 was scrubbed due to weather concerns, and launch range availability pushed the flight back even further.

"We are back on the Range with the Mighty Atlas in its Bruiser configuration for Amazon’s KA01 mission," ULA CEO Tory Bruno wrote on social media today, using a nickname for the Atlas V rocket's launch configuration, which will use five solid rocket boosters to assist the liftoff. "Working no issues. Weather [percent go] is 75%."

Related: Atlas V rocket launches Amazon's 1st 2 internet satellites to orbit (video)

Project Kuiper is Amazon's planned broadband megaconstellation in low Earth orbit. The initial network will consist of about 3,200 satellites, Amazon representatives have said.

Amazon will assemble that big constellation over more than 80 launches, the majority of them performed by the Atlas V and its successor, ULA's new Vulcan Centaur. Amazon has also procured launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin and SpaceX.

Today's launch will be the first to send fully operational Kuiper craft skyward and the second of any type for the program: An Atlas V lofted two prototype Kuiper satellites in October 2023.

Editor's note: This story, originally posted on April 9 for ULA's first launch attempt, has been updated for the company's ne wApril 28 launch attempt.

Amazon's first big batch of Project Kuiper broadband satellites will lift off just a week from now, if all goes according to plan.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to send 27 Project Kuiper satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) on April 9, Amazon announced today (April 2).

The Atlas V will lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during a three-hour window that opens at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT). You'll be able to watch it live when the time comes.

This will be the second Project Kuiper launch to date; an Atlas V lofted two test versions of the satellites back in October 2023.

Related: Atlas V rocket launches Amazon's 1st 2 internet satellites to orbit (video)

"We've done extensive testing on the ground to prepare for this first mission, but there are some things you can only learn in flight, and this will be the first time we've flown our final satellite design and the first time we've deployed so many satellites at once," Rajeev Badyal, vice president of Project Kuiper, said in an Amazon statement today.

"No matter how the mission unfolds, this is just the start of our journey, and we have all the pieces in place to learn and adapt as we prepare to launch again and again over the coming years," Badyal added.

The initial Project Kuiper constellation will consist of about 3,200 satellites in LEO, according to Amazon. The network will provide internet service to customers around the world, just as SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation already does. (Elon Musk's company currently operates more than 7,100 Starlink satellites in LEO and launches more of them every week.)

The April 9 launch will be the first of the year for ULA. The 27 Project Kuiper satellites will comprise the heaviest payload that the venerable Atlas V has ever flown, according to Amazon.

The company will build out the Project Kuiper constellation over the coming years with seven more Atlas V launches and 38 involving the rocket's successor, ULA's new Vulcan Centaur.

"An additional 30-plus launches are planned across our other launch providers: Arianespace, Blue Origin and SpaceX," Amazon wrote in today's statement.

The U.S. Space Force has certified United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket to launch national security missions.

The news, which the Space Force announced on Wednesday (March 26), doubles the number of National Security Space Launch (NSSL) providers. ULA joins SpaceX in this select group.

"Assured access to space is a core function of the Space Force and a critical element of national security," Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, the Space Force's program executive officer for assured access to space, said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. "Vulcan certification adds launch capacity, resiliency and flexibility needed by our nation's most critical space-based systems."

ULA has been working to certify the Vulcan Centaur for NSSL missions since 2016, when the company signed an agreement to this effect with the U.S. Air Force.

Related: Facts about ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket

Vulcan was still in the development phase at the time; it was ULA's powerful workhorse rocket of the future, the envisioned replacement for the company's venerable Atlas V rocket.

The Atlas V, which debuted in 2002, conducted many national security launches for the U.S. government over the years; it flew its final NSSL mission last July and is expected to retire later this decade.

Vulcan debuted in January 2024, successfully sending the private Peregrine moon lander aloft. (Peregrine, which was built by Pittsburgh company Astrobotic, suffered a serious anomaly shortly after separating from the rocket and failed to reach the moon.)

The new rocket launched again last October, on a test flight that did not carry any customer payloads. Vulcan achieved its major objectives on that mission as well, according to ULA, despite encountering a problem — the failure of an engine nozzle on one of its two solid rocket boosters.

That failure was caused by a manufacturing defect, which has now been addressed, ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno told reporters earlier this month.

The Space Force is apparently satisfied with the corrective actions taken and with Vulcan Centaur's prospects going forward, as it has given the rocket the green light to carry national security payloads.

That process was a lengthy and rigorous one, military officials said.

"Vulcan’s certification is the culmination of several years of effort by the Space Force and ULA, which encompassed 52 certification criteria, including more than 180 discrete tasks, two certification flight demonstrations, 60 payload interface requirement verifications, 18 subsystem design and test reviews, and 114 hardware and software audits, all to establish the technical baseline from which the Space Force will make future flight worthiness determinations for launch," Space Force officials wrote in the same statement.

"We are proud to have launched 100 national security space missions and honored to continue serving the nation with our new Vulcan rocket," Bruno said in the statement. "We thank the Space Force for their collaboration and confidence, and we are honored to support our national security needs for many years to come."

In late 2024 or early 2025, United Launch Alliance (ULA)'s Vulcan Centaur rocket will fly its first of more than two dozen U.S. Space Force missions allocated under a national security space launch contract.

"It's incredibly exciting," Mark Peller, Senior Vice President of Vulcan Development and Advanced Programs at ULA, told Space.com recently. "We've stacked the rocket down at the Cape [in Florida] and are going through all the normal pre-launch processing."

The Vulcan Centaur rocket will replace ULA's workhorse Atlas V, which has been flying since 2002. ULA chose the BE-4 engine from Blue Origin to power the newer rocket's first stage, as opposed to the Russian-made RD-180 used by Atlas V.

"As we transition operations from Atlas to Vulcan," Peller said, "the team I formed to develop Vulcan continues to work though planned upgrades to Vulcan to improve its performance, its versatility and meet the evolving demands of our customers in a competitive marketplace."

Related: Facts about ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket

One of Vulcan’s benefits is lower-cost launches, due to what ULA calls sensible, modular, autonomous return technology, or SMART for short. SMART allows for the most expensive rocket parts to be recovered post-launch, then refurbished for reuse. "The majority of the value of the rocket is in the back end that contains the engines and lots of other critical systems," Peller said.

SMART reuse draws on a non-propulsive solution to recover the back end downrange of the launch. "We use an inflatable heat shield, or 'aeroshield,' that we're co-developing with NASA to help slow the engine module as it reenters the atmosphere," Peller said. "In the final phases of flight, we deploy parachutes, and it does a soft splashdown in the ocean." The inflatable heat shield protects the back end, serving as a life raft, until the ULA team recovers it.

In addition to private-industry customers, NASA plans to use Vulcan, but the Space Force's USSF-106 mission is the next one on the books.

"The Vulcan Centaur launch system brings a large range of performance capabilities and technological innovations from its baseline configuration," Col. Doug Pentecost, deputy program executive officer for the Space Force’s Assured Access to Space program, said in an emailed statement. "With the launch of Vulcan, we have completed our transition from the Russian engine and now have a single core rocket to deliver to our more demanding orbits."

The methane-fueled Vulcan has now flown two certification missions, a requirement for carrying out Space Force missions. While both missions were successful from ULA's perspective, they were not without their issues.

Vulcan’s debut, called Cert-1, launched on Jan. 8, 2024 from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket carried the Peregrine lunar lander, built by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic.

With a manifest featuring a variety of space-bound deliveries from 20 customers, such as a NASA laser array, a swarm of tiny robots, a physical bitcoin and even a hunk of Mt. Everest, Peregrine aimed to make America’s first privately funded moon landing.

Vulcan Centaur performed well. But Peregrine came up short: Due to a propellant leak from a faulty helium pressure control valve, the lunar lander never made it to the moon; it drifted through space for 10 days, then was guided to a controlled destruction in Earth's atmosphere.

Vulcan’s second certification mission launched on Oct. 4, also from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. In contrast with Vulcan’s maiden voyage, this mission had no paying customers.

While launching Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser was the original plan, the robotic space plane wasn’t ready in time, so Vulcan lifted off with experiments and instrumentation enabling ULA to assess the rocket’s performance. ULA CEO Tory Bruno clocked the launch’s price tag in the "high tens of millions of dollars."

Less than a minute after liftoff on Oct. 4, an anomaly with one of the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) caused the rocket to veer slightly before the main engines quickly corrected course, allowing Vulcan to complete the flight as planned. "The vehicle was able to compensate for it and fly through it," Peller said of the SRB anomaly.

"It had a minimal impact on performance," he added. "The vehicle proved to be very robust."

ULA is still investigating what happened. "We made a lot of good progress based on some of the parts of the motor — the debris from that nozzle that were actually recovered," Peller said. "That's provided valuable physical evidence."

After the completion of the two flights, Vulcan’s final stages of certification are underway. "The government has all the final data deliverables and are just doing their due diligence before they complete the formal certification process so we can move on and fly SF-106," Peller said.

On a global level, spaceflight continues to change rapidly. 2024 has seen a range of new developments, which may alter the course the industry takes in the coming years.

In January, for example, Houston’s Venus Aerospace teamed up with NASA to test a rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE), which could revolutionize the propulsion capabilities of combustion engines. In May, India’s national space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), successfully tested a liquid-fueled rocket engine built using additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. And SpaceX continues to advance rocket reusability, recently "catching" its Starship Super Heavy booster with the launch tower’s "chopstick" arms.

As we move further into the 2020s, the spaceflight industry has only become more important. Scientific, military, and commercial interests all rely on an increasingly private-funded launch industry to bring us closer to the stars.

A towering propellant tank and its rocket engine now stand on display at Los Angeles Air Force Base as a testament to its service to both the United States' military and civilian space missions.

The Centaur III upper stage tank and RL-10 engine exhibit was dedicated last month outside the headquarters for Space Systems Command, the U.S. Space Force's division for acquiring and delivering space capabilities. The liquid hydrogen-fueled Centaur, in its various configurations, has been used in almost 300 launches of Earth orbit and interplanetary spacecraft since 1962.

"The Centaur is deeply rooted in our history," said Col. Michelle Idle, deputy commander of Space Systems Command, addressing the audience of more than 100 who attended the Oct. 18 ribbon-cutting ceremony. "It has put many of our capabilities up to orbit. Time and time again, the Centaur has delivered."

The tank and engine were donated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), which provides satellite launch services for the Department of Defense. The hardware was previously used for various testing and research purposes over the course of the Atlas II and Atlas V rocket programs.

The now-retired hardware was delivered by truck from the Mojave Desert to the base in El Segundo, California on Oct. 5. The exhibit is a result of a multi-year effort by the Space Force, the Air Force, industry partners and the Space Systems Command's Heritage Center, which supports the command's public history and educational activities.

Related: What is the U.S. Space Force and what does it do?

"The Centaur, the RL10, have been pretty much hand-in-glove with [what's now] Space Force since the '60s, getting critical satellites to orbit and still is there, helping us do our job," said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Thomas Taverney, chairman of the Heritage Center's foundation, according to a Space Force release issued on Monday (Nov. 4). "Centaur's not only been a long-living system that has continuously been updated with new technology, but it's also been a pretty darn reliable system that's operated with a high success rate."

The Centaur was developed by a partnership between the Defense Department, NASA and industry. In addition to launching classified payloads for the military and intelligence agencies, the Centaur has flown on Titan and Atlas family rockets to send probes to study the sun and the planets. A version of the Centaur was developed but never flown on the space shuttle.

In its most recent configuration, the dual-engine Centaur V flies with ULA's new Vulcan heavy-lift launch vehicle.

"Centaur was the first cryogenic upper stage featuring hydrogen and liquid oxygen, so that we could fly longer, more intense and higher-energy missions," said Marcus Nichols, a former Air Force officer who served at Los Angeles AFB and who currently works as ULA's senior manager in southern California. "We've evolved that over time to make it the most capable high-energy upper stage in the business, servicing national defense and powering missions to every planet in the solar system — and Pluto."

The Centaur III and RL-10 exhibit is located beyond the security perimeter of Los Angeles Air Force Base, restricting public access. Other Centaur stages on display include a Centaur II at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum in Denver and Centaur G Prime (or Shuttle-Centaur) at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

"The Centaur, also known as America's workhorse in space, services as an engineering marvel, representing decades of innovation and achievement in aerospace technology," said Lt. Col. Sean Granier, 61st Civil Engineer and Logistics Squadron commander and host of the dedication ceremony. "Space is not just the final frontier; it is a realm where our dreams take flight and where teamwork, across disciplines, leads to groundbreaking discoveries."

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on X at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2024 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) powerful new Vulcan Centaur rocket is two for two.

Vulcan Centaur, the successor to ULA's workhorse Atlas V, launched today (Oct. 4) at 7:25 a.m. EDT (1125 GMT) after a series of holds from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, kicking off a key test flight called Cert-2.

ULA declared the flight a success, apparently keeping the new rocket on track to be certified for use on national security missions — a box that could be checked in the coming weeks, after ULA and the U.S. Space Force have had a chance to review data from the flight. 

"I think we're all really excited to see that it's such a significant launch in terms of our certification and where we're going with Vulcan," Space Force program manager Megan Lepien said during the ULA launch livestream. "It was just a tremendous accomplishment from this team."

Vulcan Centaur flew for the first time this past January. That mission, called Cert-1, was a success, delivering the private Peregrine lunar lander to a highly elliptical moon-intercepting orbit as planned.

Peregrine didn't make it to the lunar surface, however; it suffered a propellant leak shortly after separating from the rocket's Centaur V upper stage and was guided back to Earth before getting destroyed in our atmosphere.

Related: ULA's Vulcan rocket launches private US moon lander, 1st since Apollo, and human remains in debut flight

Cert-2 was supposed to be the first-ever flight of Dream Chaser, a robotic space plane built by the Colorado company Sierra Space. But the private vehicle wasn't ready in time for liftoff, so ULA changed course, putting an inert "mass simulator" and a set of the company's own rocket-monitoring instruments on the Vulcan Centaur instead of a customer payload.

This shift meant ULA had to foot the entire bill for Cert-2, whose price tag is in the "high tens of millions of dollars," ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters in a prelaunch briefing on Wednesday (Oct. 2).   

Cert-2 "has literally one primary objective, which is to go fly a second time and have another success," Bruno added in Wednesday's briefing.

That objective was apparently achieved, as Vulcan Centaur seemed to perform well throughout the flight. The rocket ticked all the major boxes on schedule — jettisoning its two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) around two minutes after liftoff, for example, and acing stage separation about three minutes after that. 

There was a burst of material from the rocket about 39 seconds after liftoff, as seen in the launch video. The cause was a failed nozzle on one of the SRBs, Bruno explained in a series of X posts after liftoff. But Vulcan Centaur was able to fly its planned flight profile nonetheless, he said.

"Rocket compensated, as designed. Nominal trajectory. Bullseye insertion," Bruno wrote in one such post.

The Centaur V upper stage conducted two long engine burns as planned, the second ending about 35 minutes after liftoff. That milestone brought the main Cert-2 mission to an end, though ULA planned to do a little more work after that as well.

"We're going to conduct a few maneuvers with the upper stage, just to learn better how it behaves in those types of maneuvers, and also to give us more time with the [onboard] experiments," Bruno said in Wednesday's briefing.

Those maneuvers and experiments could inform the development of a future version of the Centaur V that's capable of operating in the final frontier for much longer than an hour or so, which Bruno said is the current norm for an upper stage. 

"We think it's possible to take this to months, and that's a game-changer," he said. "What that would allow us to do is have an in-space transportation capability for in-space mobility and servicing and things like that."

If all goes according to plan, the Centaur V will head to a disposal orbit around the sun after completing those extra maneuvers and experiments, Bruno said via X on Wednesday. The stage will then be "passivated" — drained of propellant and battery power until it's an inert hunk of metal.

ULA will analyze the Cert-2 flight data, then hand that information over to Space Force officials who will perform their own examination, Bruno said. Certification could follow relatively soon after.

"If the mission is very clean, like the Cert-1 mission, that goes pretty quickly," Bruno said on Wednesday. "I mean, that'll be done in weeks, not months."

ULA is gearing up for that short timeline. The company hopes to launch two national security missions, known as USSF-106 and USSF-87, with Vulcan Centaur before the end of the year. And, if all goes according to plan, the new rocket will be a big part of a busy 2025 for ULA. The company aims to launch 20 missions next year, Bruno said, half of them with Vulcan Centaur and half with the still-active Atlas V.

One of those Vulcan Centaur flights will likely loft the space plane that was originally supposed to fly today.

"We have room in the 2025 manifest for Dream Chaser," Bruno said on Wednesday. "It's just a matter of, you know, when they're ready to go, and then we'll work with the range and the other customers and find a slot for them, and we'll get them up there."

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:50 p.m. ET with information about the SRB nozzle failure from Tory Bruno.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) is set to launch the second test flight of its Vulcan Centaur rocket on Friday morning (Oct. 4), and you can watch the action live online. 

Vulcan Centaur's second mission, a test flight called Cert-2, is scheduled to lift off from Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41) at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station during a three-hour window that opens at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT). You can watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. 

Cert-2 is the second flight of Vulcan Centaur after January's Cert-1, which sent Astrobotic’s Peregrine moon lander to Earth orbit. Cert-2 is a demonstration mission required to certify the rocket for future use by the U.S. Space Force.

Vulcan Centaur was rolled out to SLC-41 on Monday (Sept. 30). The rocket had a successful “wet dress rehearsal” on Tuesday (Oct. 1), during which the company completed a fueling test and practice countdown. 

ULA aims to launch two Space Force missions, called USSF-106 and USSF-87, with Vulcan Centaur by the end of the year. A successful Cert-2 launch will be a big step toward that goal, though post-flight data reviews are required to formally certify the rocket. 

Related: ULA rolls Vulcan Centaur rocket to pad ahead of 2nd-ever launch (photos)

The Cert-2 test flight will carry an inert "mass simulator" and instrumentation that will allow ULA to assess the rocket’s upper stage. The mission was originally supposed to fly Sierra Space's robotic Dream Chaser space plane, but the spacecraft wasn’t ready in time for launch. 

ULA will share mission updates on its blog from launch control beginning at 12 midnight EDT (0400 GMT). The launch webcast will start at 5:40 a.m. EDT (0940 UTC). You can also follow the launch activities online here at Space.com — be sure to check back for updates on the mission. 

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) new Vulcan Centaur rocket is ready for its second-ever liftoff, which is targeted for Friday (Oct. 4).

ULA conducted a launch readiness review (LRR) today (Oct. 2) for Vulcan Centaur's second mission, a test flight called Cert-2 that's designed to help get the rocket certified for use by the U.S. Space Force. And everything went well.

"Leadership from ULA and the Space Force assessed the readiness of the rocket, payload and mission assets, discussed the status of pre-flight processing work, heard technical overviews of the countdown and flight, and previewed the weather forecast that projects a 75% chance of meeting the launch rules," ULA wrote in an update today. " At the conclusion of the meeting, senior leaders were polled and gave a ready status for launch, then signed the Launch Readiness Certificate."

Cert-2 will fly from Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41) at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, during a three-hour window that opens at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT).

ULA rolled the Vulcan Centaur out to that pad on Monday (Sept. 30). On Tuesday (Oct. 1), the company conducted a crucial "wet dress rehearsal" with the rocket, fueling it up, going through a practice countdown and then offloading the propellant.

"We completed all of that," ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters during a media call on Wednesday (Oct. 2). "It went very, very well, per plan."

Related: ULA's Vulcan rocket launches private US moon lander, 1st since Apollo, and human remains in debut flight

The Vulcan Centaur's debut flight, Cert-1, lifted off in January, sending the privately built Peregrine moon lander to Earth orbit. The rocket performed extremely well, according to Bruno.

"It was the cleanest first launch I've ever had, and it is the cleanest first launch I've ever seen anybody else have," he said on Wednesday.

Peregrine was not similarly spotless, however. The lander suffered a propellant leak shortly after separating from the rocket's Centaur V upper stage and was eventually guided to a controlled destruction in Earth's atmosphere.

Cert-2 was supposed to launch an operational payload as well —  Sierra Space's robotic Dream Chaser space plane. But Dream Chaser wasn't ready in time for Cert-2's liftoff, so the mission will fly an inert "mass simulator," along with some extra instrumentation that will allow ULA to assess Vulcan Centaur's performance in great detail.

"There's no paying customer; this is all on us," Bruno said of Cert-2. "Which is also why we wanted to get some experiments on there and get as much utility out of it as we could."

Bruno declined to give an exact price tag for Cert-2 but did say it's in the "high tens of millions of dollars." 

If all goes well with Cert-2 and the ensuing data reviews, Vulcan Centaur will begin flying national security missions soon: ULA plans to launch two Space Force missions, called USSF-106 and USSF-87, with the rocket by the end of the year, Bruno said.

The company aims to launch 20 missions in 2025, he added, half of them with the Vulcan Centaur and half with the Atlas V, the workhorse rocket that the Vulcan Centaur is designed to replace. One of those Vulcan Centaur missions will loft Dream Chaser on its first orbital mission, Bruno said.

"We have room in the 2025 manifest for Dream Chaser," he said. "It's just a matter of, you know, when they're ready to go, and then we'll work with the range and the other customers and find a slot for them, and we'll get them up there."

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) second Vulcan Centaur rocket has made it to the pad.

ULA rolled the Vulcan Centaur out to Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41) at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (Sept. 30) to gear up for the vehicle's second-ever launch, which is scheduled for no earlier than Friday (Oct. 4).

Part of that prep work is a key fueling test known as a wet dress rehearsal (WDR), during which the rocket will be "loaded with a million pounds of cryogenic propellants at Space Launch Complex-41 and put through a complete countdown procedure," ULA said via X today.

If all goes well with the WDR and other checkouts, Vulcan Centaur will launch from SLC-41 on Friday during a three-hour window that opens at 6:00 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT).  

That liftoff will kick off Cert-2, the second of two test flights needed to certify the new rocket for use by the U.S. Space Force. The first such mission occurred in January, when Vulcan Centaur successfully lofted Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine moon lander to Earth orbit. 

Related: ULA's Vulcan rocket launches private US moon lander, 1st since Apollo, and human remains in debut flight

Peregrine didn't end up making it to the moon, however: It suffered a propellant leak shortly after deploying from the rocket's Centaur V upper stage and ended up returning to Earth to burn up in our atmosphere.

No operational spacecraft will go up on Cert-2. The mission "includes an inert payload and demonstrations associated with future Centaur V technologies," ULA wrote in a mission description.

That's a change from the original plan: Cert-2 was supposed to launch Sierra Space's robotic Dream Chaser space plane on its first-ever orbital flight. But Sierra Space needed more time to prep Dream Chaser for its debut, which will still employ the Vulcan Centaur.

"We are working with Sierra Space to put the Dream Chaser back onto the manifest when they are ready to go," ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters this past June, when the company announced the Cert-2 shift. "We waited as long as possible on Dream Chaser," he added, "because we really wanted to fly them." 

SpaceX's plans to launch its Starship–Super Heavy two-stage rocket 44 times per year from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida have come under fire from its two main rivals: United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.

The Starship vehicle is the world's largest rocket. Its two stages are SpaceX's Super Heavy booster rocket, and the upper stage spacecraft known somewhat confusingly as Starship or "Ship," on which a crew of up to 100 astronauts could someday fly.

Having undergone testing over the past few years, the design of the Starship/Super Heavy has undergone a number of revamps, with the latest resulting in a rocket that will stand up to 492 feet (150 meters) tall. To put this into context, the Saturn V was 363 feet (111 meters) tall, while the crewed version of NASA's new Space Launch System stands 322 feet 98 meters high. SpaceX's rocket is enormous, and the plan is for it to ferry astronauts to the moon and Mars. 

Before SpaceX can get a license to commence launches from launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, an environmental impact statement must be provided that details what effects SpaceX's launches would have on the local environment and wildlife, as well as neighboring business and residents. This is done so by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and it is currently in the consultation phase, where local businesses, organizations and members of the public can provide their say as to the pros and cons of SpaceX's plans. And, well, SpaceX's rivals haven't held back.

Blue Origin submitted a 3-page letter to the FAA, in which they ask for a cap to be put into place on the number of launches and landings, reducing the 44 planned launches to an unspecified amount "that has a minimal impact on the local environment, locally operating personnel and the local community," they wrote.

The Blue Origin objections also raise the point that the Starship–Super Heavy will hold "an unprecedented" 5,200 metric tons of liquid methane fuel, which is highly flammable and, should something go wrong, could create a devastating explosion on the launch pad. Blue Origin claims that the safety margins are so wide that they overlap with the launch pads, hangars and offices of several other companies, including Blue Origin themselves on launch pad 36, all of which are leased from the Kennedy Space Center.

ULA's criticisms hit even harder in a 22-page document that the company submitted as part of the consultation. They don't hold back, accusing SpaceX of producing their own environmental impact statement for their extravagantly named 'Starbase' at Boca Chica in Texas from where they have been testing Starship so far.

In the letter, ULA points out that SpaceX's environmental impact statement suggested that debris from any mishap on launch would only cover a square mile (2.5 sq km). In April 2023, during Starship's first test flight, debris was scattered instead over a 6-mile (9.6-km) radius, endangering the surrounding area and showing just how much SpaceX had underestimated the danger to their surroundings. The explosion led to environmental groups bringing a lawsuit against SpaceX and the FAA, which was eventually dismissed in court. At Kennedy, ULA's base is located only 3 miles (4.8 km) from SpaceX's launch pad 39A, which makes them understandably nervous.

"With the increased liftoff thrust planned for Starship, the debris from a similar launch failure could reach larger, populated areas surrounding KSC," said ULA, whose recommendation is that SpaceX launch Starship from Boca Chica instead. 

"As the largest rocket in existence," wrote ULA, "an accident would inflict serious or even catastrophic damage, while normal launch operations would have a cumulative impact on structures, launch vehicle hardware and other critical launch support equipment."

On the other hand, Blue Origin suggested that the Government build new launchpads farther away from 39A for those companies such as themselves that could potentially be affected by SpaceX's Starship operations.

There was also much concern for the environment and local wildlife. To achieve the aim of 44 launches per year, there would need to be at least 3 or 4 launches per month, resulting in launchpad 39A being in use year-round. The Merritt Island Wildlife Association (Merritt Island is the peninsula on which the Kennedy Space Center is found) pointed out that floodlights will be on almost all the time at 39A that will disrupt the natural rhythms of wildlife, for example by sending migrating birds astray. 

Meanwhile, the Defenders of Wildlife organization in Florida point out that near Boca Chica, the eggs of nesting birds were cracked by falling granular debris resulting from Starship's previous test flights. Birds are known to nest near launch pad 39A, and more frequent launches would harm the bird population in the area. However, the Defenders of Wildlife do state their belief that using 39A is better than building brand-new launch sites on undeveloped ground near Kennedy Space Center, as proposed by Blue Origin, which would also have a great environmental impact.

A wide-ranging New York Times investigation published June 8 details the environmental damage SpaceX's operations at Boca Chica have caused, noting that the damage has sparked a debate "over how to balance technological and economic progress against protections of delicate ecosystems and local communities." While FAA leadership is aware of the environmental issues Starship is causing, the agency has also stressed that the vehicle is vital for America's space program. 

"Blowing debris into state parks or national land is not what we prescribed, but the bottom line is no one got hurt, no one got injured," The FAA's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation Kelvin B. Coleman told the New York Times. "We certainly don't want people to feel like they're bulldozed. But it's a really important operation that SpaceX is conducting down there. It is really important to our civilian space program."

It's not just wildlife that could be affected by Starship. SpaceX's water deluge system sprays a million gallons of water onto the pad during launch to protect it from damage during launch by absorbing much of the heat. While much of this water is vaporized, the rest runs off into collection ponds around the launch site. ULA questions whether and how this water will be treated for any toxic or otherwise hazardous chemicals in it, and what will prevent it from leaking out into the water supply at large.

SpaceX also has their eye on a second launch pad, having inquired about use of launch complex 37 from 2026 onwards on the neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The U.S. Air Force is conducting its own environmental study of this proposal before granting permission.

ULA also questions SpaceX's decision to stop using offshore drone ships to land the Super Heavy booster on, and to instead land them back on 39A, which they say "shifts the risks of a system failure onto the communities, businesses, and environment that surround KSC." 

All three companies are competing for the same NASA contracts, and some observers might see these complaints as sour grapes from SpaceX's rivals who are struggling to keep up with them. SpaceX's Elon Musk responded in a seemingly mocking fashion to Blue Origin's complaint on social media, posting "Sue Origin" on X (the social media company he owns) in the days following the company's letter.

However, whatever the motivations behind the complaints, many of them relating to safety and environmental impact do seem pertinent. Even NASA have misgivings; space agency officials have previously stated that an incident at the launch pad could effectively cut NASA off from their only means of reaching the International Space Station, which would leave astronauts stranded.

Both Blue Origin's and ULA's objections to Starship operations at KSC come down to the two companies believing that the rocket is too untested, too dangerous and too disruptive to fit into the ecosystem of the other users of the Kennedy Space Center. 

However, it will be up to the FAA to decide whether such concerns are valid, and whether they are enough to prevent Elon Musk and SpaceX from fulfilling their Starship dreams.

SpaceX, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance (ULA) have been chosen to provide launch services for the U.S. Space Force. 

The three companies will compete for National Security Space Launch (NSSL) contracts worth up to $5.6 billion across fiscal years 2025 through 2029, the U.S. Department of Defense announced on June 13.

The contracts are part of the NSSL Phase 3 launch services program. At least 30 NSSL Lane 1 missions, which head for low Earth orbit, will be launched over the five-year span. 

National security missions include launches of classified satellites for U.S. agencies such as the Missile Defense Agency, Space Development Agency and National Reconnaissance Office.

Related: US Space Force is launching more missions than ever. Lawmakers worry America's spaceports can't keep up

Contracts for NSSL Launch Phase 3 Lane 2 missions will be awarded at a later time. These missions will use heavy-lift rockets to target more challenging orbits.

Notably, the newly announced selection marks the first time that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has been picked for national security launch contracts. The company has long targeted attaining such contracts, but was unsuccessful with a NSSL Phase 2 bid, despite an appeal.

The first flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn heavy-lift rocket is currently scheduled for August 2024, aiming to send NASA's two-spacecraft EscaPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission to Mars.

Meanwhile, ULA will be aiming to get its new Vulcan rocket flying regularly after a successful first launch in January. 

The NSSL Phase 3 is designed to increase competition, driving down launch costs for national security payloads, SpaceNews reports. The contract notice stated that seven offers were received for the competitive acquisition.

The next opportunity for launch companies to secure national security launches will come in financial year 2025. 

Shortly after shepherding the first Boeing Starliner to a space port, NASA astronaut Bob Hines got a special assignment.

Hines was one of the astronauts working in the International Space Station for the historic first berthing of an uncrewed Boeing Starliner spacecraft on May 22, 2022. Hines, who flew on SpaceX Crew-4, returned to Earth from half a year in space that October, to learn that NASA wanted him to help see Starliner through its first crewed mission.

It took extra time after new technical issues arose, but Starliner at last lifted off yesterday (May 21) aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on its debut astronaut mission. Hines, a former U.S. Navy test pilot, shares that military heritage with the two members of Starliner's Crew Flight Test (CFT): NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

A big advantage of that military background, he told Space.com at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in early May, is everyone has a handle on "test fundamentals" they learned in the prestigious Naval Test Pilot School. "It's about teamwork, and building and leading teams to go do hard things," Hines said of the experience. "That's fundamental to it."

Related: Boeing's Starliner is a 'big piece of America's overall strategy for access to low Earth orbit,' astronaut says

Hines is a member of the joint test team, a team within the commercial crew program that manages the test and verification of commercial crew vehicles. Additionally, he is assistant to NASA's chief astronaut on the commercial crew side — that's a sort of technical advisory role to advise the chief on progress, he explained.

Starliner, one of NASA's two commercial crew vehicles, flew its first crewed mission four years after SpaceX's Crew Dragon in 2020. SpaceX had the advantage of borrowing design and experience from eight years of cargo Dragon missions, while Starliner was a new spacecraft. 

As such, Starliner met snags: its first uncrewed mission in 2019 failed to reach the ISS as planned after software glitches stranded the spacecraft in the wrong orbit. While Hines safely saw a second Starliner berth flawlessly in 2022, crewed missions were again delayed last year by issues with the parachutes and with wiring. (All issues were addressed to NASA's and Boeing's satisfaction well ahead of CFT, officials have repeatedly emphasized in recent months.)

Read more: After an 'emotional rollercoaster,' NASA astronauts are ready to fly on Boeing Starliner

Design decisions, Hines explained, are always difficult as aerospace technicians need to consider "trades": emphasizing one aspect of a spacecraft (such as more mass) means that something has to give somewhere else (available rocket fuel to carry other things, for example). Hines was part of the team working to make smart trades as Starliner met its final design challenges.

"Sometimes maybe it's not about solving it technically, but procedurally, and getting the teams together and building that kind of cohesion so that we can have those conversations and make those trades," he explained. "Everything's a compromise. So it really is all about getting those different points of view together, getting them all laid out on the table, and then figuring out what the best path forward is."

That design process continues even after Starliner returns, as future missions are put in process. Starliner-1, the first operational crewed mission with astronauts, has most of its hardware ready to go for a launch no earlier than early 2025. Assuming all goes to plan on CFT, that spacecraft will fly mostly as-is, with future missions gaining deeper design "lessons learned" from the pioneering astronaut mission.

"We're going be looking at looking at this data [from CFT] and seeing is it what we expect? If it's not, why? Trying to figure those kinds of things out," Hines explained. "It is a test flight. So we fully expect to have some unexpected things arise during this test flight. And so that's kind of where I'm coming in along with the other team — members of the Joint test team — to analyze that data and really look at it."

Hines plans to capture the crew's experience even during the flight, which will include space-to-ground interviews in which he talks to Wilmore and Williams while matters are fresh on their mind. "We'll have a series of questions. We'll take their comments down. And then we'll pair all that up with the data that we saw."

"It's really important," he added of the process. "Those of us that grow up in flight tests, we get in the habit of talking into the tapes, we say it. We are making comments real-time, and they might be short and abbreviated, but [it is a] memory jogger so that when we come back, we can recall what that detail was."

SpaceX bigwigs celebrated the arrival of a new American capsule on the human-spaceflight scene today (June 5).

That spacecraft is Boeing's Starliner, which is carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams toward the International Space Station (ISS) after launching this morning atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

"Congratulations on a successful launch!" SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X today.

SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, shared similar, slightly more verbose sentiments in an X post of her own: "Congratulations to @NASA, @BoeingSpace and @ULAlaunch on this morning's launch to the @space_station, and Godspeed to Butch, Suni and Starliner on your flight!"

Related: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

Starliner is scheduled to reach the ISS tomorrow (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT). You can watch that milestone here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA.

The capsule, Wilmore and Williams will remain at the orbiting lab for about a week, then head back home to Earth to wrap up the mission, which is known as Crew Flight Test (CFT). If all goes well, Starliner will be certified to fly six-month astronaut missions to and from the ISS for NASA — something SpaceX already does.

Boeing and SpaceX both got multibillion-dollar contracts from NASA's Commercial Crew Program back in 2014 to provide this astronaut-ferrying service. SpaceX launched its version of CFT, known as Demo-2, in May 2020 and is now in the middle of its eighth operational, long-duration crewed mission for the agency.

Starliner's road has been far bumpier. The capsule failed to meet up with the ISS on its first uncrewed test flight back in December 2019, for example. And issues with the capsule's parachute system and wiring (much of which was wrapped in flammable tape) caused further delays.

It's easy to frame the SpaceX-Boeing situation as a race — one that Musk's company is winning handily. But NASA doesn't see things that way, according to agency chief Bill Nelson.

"When we expand our fleet of spacecraft, what we're doing is expanding our reach to the stars," Nelson said in a postlaunch news conference today. "So this is a special moment. It's another one of those great markers in history."

Boeing representatives also downplayed the competition angle, sending positive vibes back in SpaceX's direction.

"We don't see it as a competition," Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, said during today's news conference. "I sit on my front porch and I watch every SpaceX mission, and I root for them, too. This is something that's great for the entire country."

NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance (ULA) celebrated the historic launch of a second commercial crew spacecraft with astronauts today (June 5).

Boeing's Starliner headed toward the International Space Station (ISS) today at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 GMT) with two NASA astronauts and former U.S. Navy test pilots on board: Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The duo made the record books not only as the first humans to ride Starliner, but also the first to launch atop ULA's veteran Atlas V rocket.

"This is a special moment. It's another one of those great markers in history," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a post-launch press conference today at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, near the launch site, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

"What NASA does is hard," Nelson added. "Spaceflight is hard, but it’s worth doing." 

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

Today's launch marked the first time astronauts have left Earth from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (or its many previous incarnations, which included Cape Kennedy Air Force Station and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station) since Apollo 7 in 1968. But more will likely follow in its footsteps soon.

The agency's other commercial crew vendor, SpaceX, has already sent astronauts to space multiple times, first notching this milestone four years ago. SpaceX's Crew Dragon, which built off the company's successful cargo Dragon design, carried its first astronauts to space on a test flight in May 2020. Boeing, working with a new spacecraft, needed extra time to achieve the same thing.

Starliner's first uncrewed test flight, in December 2019, suffered several software glitches that kept the spacecraft in the wrong orbit, unable to reach the ISS. The second uncrewed effort, which launched in May 2022, was successful: Starliner arrived at the ISS safely. Yet the newly launched astronaut mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), faced new delays in 2023 after significant issues were found with Starliner's parachute system and wiring (much of which was wrapped in flammable tape); these necessitated fixes, which took time.

Several other, more minor issues cropped up right before launch. CFT was supposed to get off the ground on May 6, but the team called that try off about two hours before launch after noticing a misbehaving valve in the Atlas V's upper stage. ULA decided to replace the valve, which pushed the next try back to May 17. But then teams noticed a slight helium leak in one of Starliner's reaction-control thrusters, which delayed things further. Ultimately, NASA, Boeing and ULA deemed the helium leak a minor issue and cleared CFT for launch on June 1. That try, however, was aborted just minutes before liftoff thanks to faulty ground equipment, pushing liftoff back to today.

"I know it's really easy to lose patience as you're waiting for launches to happen," Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said during today's press conference. "But, as I said before, good things are worth waiting for."

The focus of the CFT team is now on making sure Wilmore and Williams safely reach the ISS while testing key systems along the way. The duo will do some manual flying, for example, to get a feel for Starliner's various systems.

Wilmore and Williams are "going to test this thing from izzard to gizzard, and they're going to certify it for a rotational basis to send crew to the International Space Station," Nelson said. ("Izzard," in case you were wondering, is another word for the letter "z.")

If all goes according to plan, Starliner will dock autonomously with the orbiting facility tomorrow (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT), a milestone that you can watch live here at Space.com.

Assuming the roughly 10-day-long CFT goes as planned and the mission meets all major objectives, Boeing's first operational mission, Starliner-1, is scheduled for no earlier than 2025. That coming mission's commander, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, was backup on CFT, while mission specialist and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Josh Kutryk worked ascent as capcom (capsule communicator). Also on board Starliner-1 will be NASA's Scott Tingle.

Keeping the Starliner-1 crew tightly integrated with CFT was a key goal in training, to smooth the flow between the missions as much as possible, Boeing and NASA have emphasized, as the ISS seeks to welcome U.S.-led crews every six months. The goal is for Dragon and Starliner to alternate launch opportunities.

Russia likely will not fly a cosmonaut aboard Starliner-1, as the country is waiting for more data on the spacecraft, NASA officials said in a press conference on May 3. How that will affect integrated crews in the future remains to be seen, as NASA plans to continue flying its astronauts aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft for backup and policy reasons.

Boeing is expected to fly six or seven operational Starliner crews until the planned retirement of ISS in 2030, although it is possible Starliner will continue to serve the agency, helping NASA astronauts get to and from commercial space stations planned in the next decade.

Boeing's Starliner's first-ever astronaut mission is underway.

Starliner, Boeing's new astronaut taxi for NASA, soared into space today (June 5) from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, notching a huge milestone after nearly two decades of commercial crew planning.

Veteran NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, both former U.S. Navy test pilots with 11,000 flight hours between them, are riding aboard the Boeing Starliner capsule, which launched today at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 GMT) atop a United Launch Alliance's (ULA) workhorse Atlas V rocket. As it was for Starliner, this was also the first time astronauts have launched atop an Atlas V in its 22-year flight history.

Related: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

"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," pilot Sunita Williams said just minutes before launch, referring to the name of the Starliner capsule.

Starliner is headed toward the International Space Station (ISS), where Wilmore and Williams will spend about eight days putting the spacecraft through a series of tests toward operational crew certification. Rendezvous is scheduled for Thursday (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT). You can follow the mission with our Starliner live updates page.

The fiery launch brings NASA within reach of a goal the agency set more than a decade ago: getting two American commercial vehicles up and running for astronaut missions to the ISS. It's been a long road to get here, as the roots of this goal go back to at least 2006.

The newly launched Starliner mission, a roughly 10-day jaunt known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), was originally scheduled to lift off on May 6. But that attempt was scrubbed about two hours before launch, when team members noticed a "buzzing" valve on the Atlas V's upper stage.

ULA decided to replace the valve, which required rolling the rocket off the pad and back to the company's vertical integration facility. That work delayed the planned liftoff until May 17, but then another issue arose: a slight helium leak in one of the reaction-control thrusters in Starliner's service module. 

The mission team took more time to analyze the leak and its potential consequences, ultimately deeming it a minor issue and clearing CFT for a planned June 1 liftoff. "Sometimes, for spaceflight, you plan for contingencies, and you design the vehicle to have margin," Steve Stich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, said during a pre-launch press briefing on Friday (May 31).

"We have margin in the helium tank," he added. "We could handle a leak that's 100 times worse than this. So [...] we concluded that the smartest thing to do was to go fly the mission, and we could fly it safely."

The June 1 attempt, however, was aborted just minutes before liftoff thanks to a failed power distribution source in the ground equipment. The mission team replaced the faulty gear, setting CFT up for its launch today.  

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. 

Related: The ISS has a urine pump problem. Boeing's Starliner will flush it out.

Commercial crew's genesis extends back to the commercial cargo program, which was first funded in 2006, as NASA used similar models to get private robotic and crewed vehicles running to the ISS. Until then, only government programs had sent supplies to the orbiting lab; agency officials turned to industry to nurture those companies' independence and resilience while, ideally, saving on taxpayer cost. 

Commercial cargo 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 cargo development 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. 

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

Between 2010 and 2014, several new rounds of commercial crew funding brought extra support to Boeing, SpaceX and a range of other companies. CCDev-2, announced in April 2011, awarded a total of $270 million to Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX. (Boeing got $92 million in this round for Starliner, while SpaceX's $75 million went toward the development of Crew Dragon.)

The funding increased with Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) in August 2012, as NASA also narrowed the field to three companies: Sierra Nevada received $212 million for Dream Chaser, while Boeing and SpaceX got $460 million and $440 million, respectively. 

SpaceX and Boeing then received the last major contract for final development work, known as Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap), in September 2014. Boeing's deal was worth $4.2 billion back then, while SpaceX got $2.6 billion. The money was also meant to cover six operational crewed flights to and from the ISS.

As is common with big spaceflight projects, lots of logistical and technical obstacles arose for both companies' spacecraft. NASA wanted the two CCtCap awardees to fly astronauts in 2017, but SpaceX's first such test flight launched in 2020, while Boeing's was delayed even longer, until today.

Lots of things contributed to the wait. Congress repeatedly gave less money than the White House and NASA requested for commercial crew, and technical obstacles arose. Boeing's solutions, however, took more flights and more time than SpaceX's.

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. Their mission had been expected to launch in 2019, shortly after an uncrewed Crew Dragon successfully reached the ISS for the first time that March. But only a month later, that Dragon exploded during a ground test of its launch-abort system. SpaceX, as one would expect, put off human launches until it could address the mishap cause, which turned out to be a faulty valve.

Starliner's issues were more complex. Its own first uncrewed mission, called Orbital Flight Test (OFT), never reached the ISS as planned in December 2019. The capsule's timing system got confused, and Starliner became stuck in an orbit that made it impossible to rendezvous with its destination. The investigation was complex and lengthy, requiring dozens of fixes, and the pandemic's arrival in early 2020 further delayed schedules due to supply chain problems and social distancing requirements. 

Starliner's next uncrewed flight met up with the ISS flawlessly in May 2022, but its road to crewed flights faced another obstacle in 2023. Late in CFT's training flow, new issues with the spacecraft were discovered, requiring extra fixes ahead of flight. The most pressing concerned the main parachutes (which carried less load than engineers thought) and the capsule wiring (which, as it turned out, was largely wrapped in flammable P213 tape).

The CFT astronauts, and Boeing and NASA, have repeatedly said these issues are behind them, although new issues could arise during CFT. Wilmore has also downplayed CFT as being the one thing determining Starliner's success; he frames all stages of development for astronauts as "vitally important."

"This is human spaceflight," Wilmore explained to reporters in a livestreamed press conference on April 25, when he and Williams arrived at KSC for quarantine, training and launch preparations ahead of the May 6 attempt. "You know that adage you've heard since Apollo 13: failure is not an option. And that has nothing specifically to do with Boeing or this program. That's all things that we do in human spaceflight."

In addition, a failure of a parachute to fully open during Blue Origin's recent NS-25 suborbital crewed launch prompted Boeing to double-check Starliner’s own parachute systems. 

"Starliner uses some similar components to [the New Shepard] parachute system," Stich explained during the May 31 briefing. According to Stich, Blue Origin provided NS-25 flight data with NASA, SpaceX and Boeing, allowing engineers to ensure the functionality of specific components. And, after examining the data, Stich said it was determined Starliner was "good to go fly."

Related: 1st Boeing Starliner astronauts are ready to launch to the ISS for NASA (exclusive)

With the ISS expected to continue flying 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.

Some NASA astronauts continue to use Soyuz for policy reasons, and also because the space station partners want as many backups as possible in case of technical problems with any one spacecraft.

As for private Starliner astronaut missions aside from NASA obligations for ISS, Boeing officials have said repeatedly that they want to focus on fulfilling their NASA contract first. 

In the May 31 briefing, Fincke said that CFT "will help continue the certification process for Starliner, so that Starliner 1, 2, 3, to infinity and beyond, can fly and provide services to the International Space Station, and it’s up to Boeing, but other other missions available out there too." 

Besides that, CFT "really is all of our attention at this point," Mark Nappi, Boeing's commercial crew program manager, told reporters on April 25. With at least six more years of ISS flights to plan for, "we've got plenty of time to think about what's after that," he added.

The first astronaut mission of Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft has been pushed back by an additional four days, to May 25.

Tuesday (May 21) had been the latest target date for the launch of Starliner's Crew Flight Test (CFT), which will send NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly week-long stay. 

But NASA announced today (May 17) that it's now eyeing May 25 for the liftoff, which will take place atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast.

"The additional time allows teams to further assess a small helium leak in the Boeing Starliner spacecraft's service module traced to a flange on a single reaction control system thruster," agency officials wrote in an update today.

Related: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

That leak was discovered earlier this week, prompting the mission team to push CFT's planned launch from today to May 21. Further analysis of the leak suggests that it's not a huge problem, but NASA, Boeing and ULA want more time to assess the situation, agency officials wrote in today's update.

"Pressure testing performed on May 15 on the spacecraft's helium system showed the leak in the flange is stable and would not pose a risk at that level during the flight," the update reads. 

"The testing also indicated the rest of the thruster system is sealed effectively across the entire service module," it continues. "Boeing teams are working to develop operational procedures to ensure the system retains sufficient performance capability and appropriate redundancy during the flight." 

CFT was originally supposed to launch on May 6, but that attempt was scrubbed a few hours before liftoff when the launch team noticed a "buzzing" valve in the Atlas V's upper stage. ULA eventually decided to replace the valve, a process that required rolling the Atlas V and Starliner off the pad and back to an assembly building. That operation pushed the target launch date to today, which became untenable after the helium leak cropped up.

Starliner and its rocket ride remain in the assembly building. Williams and Wilmore, meanwhile, are in quarantine in Houston. They'll return to Florida's Space Coast when the target launch date draws near, NASA officials said in today's update.

Boeing developed, and is flying, Starliner under a $4.2 billion contract awarded by NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014. SpaceX got a similar deal, worth $2.6 billion, for work on its Dragon capsule.

SpaceX is in the middle of its eighth contracted, long-duration astronaut mission to the ISS for NASA. CFT will be Starliner's first crewed effort, the equivalent of SpaceX's Demo-2 mission, a test flight that launched in May 2020. 

The crewed debut of Boeing's Starliner capsule has been pushed back an additional four days.

Starliner had been scheduled to lift off this Friday (May 17) on Crew Flight Test (CFT), a mission that will send NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly eight-day stay. 

But that's no longer the plan. Teams detected a small helium leak in Starliner's service module and have pushed the target date back to May 21, Boeing announced in an update today (May 14).

Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast. The May 21 launch is scheduled for 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT); you can watch it live here at Space.com when the time comes.

Related: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

Today's news is the latest in a string of recent CFT delay announcements. The mission was originally supposed to lift off on May 6, but the team called that attempt off about two hours before launch after noticing a "buzzing" valve in the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage.

Boeing, NASA and ULA initially pushed the launch target back to May 10, then delayed it to May 17 after determining that the troublesome valve needed to be replaced, an operation that required rolling the Atlas V off the pad to an assembly facility at Cape Canaveral.

The troublesome valve was replaced and is behaving normally, Boeing representatives said in today's update. 

The newfound helium leak, they added, has been traced to a "flange on a single reaction control system thruster" in Starliner's service module. These thrusters don't burn helium, but the gas allows them to fire properly.

"NASA and Boeing are developing spacecraft testing and operational solutions to address the issue," Boeing wrote in the update. "As a part of the testing, Boeing will bring the propulsion system up to flight pressurization just as it does prior to launch, and then allow the helium system to vent naturally to validate existing data and strengthen flight rationale."

CFT will be the third flight for Starliner, after two uncrewed launches to the ISS. The capsule suffered several problems on its first mission, which lifted off in December 2019, and failed to meet up with the orbiting lab as planned. But Starliner succeeded on its second try, which launched in May 2022.

CFT is a crewed shakeout cruise for the capsule; if all goes well on the upcoming mission, Starliner will be certified to fly NASA astronauts on long-duration missions to and from the ISS. Boeing holds a $4.2 billion contract with the space agency to do just that, which was signed in 2014.

SpaceX got a similar deal at the same time, worth $2.6 billion. Elon Musk's company flew its equivalent of CFT in 2020 and is in the middle of its eighth operational, long-duration astronaut mission to the ISS for NASA.

Boeing's Starliner capsule has left the launch pad.

Starliner and its rocket ride, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V, rolled off the pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (May 8), heading to an assembly building at the site so scientists can replace a misbehaving valve in the launcher's upper stage.

The duo could be back soon, however: They're scheduled to launch no earlier than May 17, kicking off Starliner's first-ever astronaut mission, a trial run to the International Space Station (ISS) called Crew Flight Test (CFT).

Related: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

CFT was originally supposed to launch on Monday night (May 6), but the mission team called things off about two hours before liftoff after noticing that an oxygen relief valve in the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage was opening and closing rapidly. This repeated action was audible; team members described it as a "buzzing."

The planned launch was then pushed to no earlier than Friday (May 10). However, that new target date became untenable after ULA decided that the buzzing valve needed to be replaced, an operation that required rolling the Starliner-Atlas V stack back to its integration facility.

If CFT does indeed launch on May 17, it will happen at 6:16 p.m. EDT (10:16 p.m. GMT). Whenever the mission indeed lifts off, you can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA. 

CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS for a roughly eight-day stay. The mission is designed to certify Starliner for long-duration flights to the orbiting lab, which Boeing will fly under a $4.2 billion contract awarded by NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014.

SpaceX also received a similar deal, worth $2.6 billion. Elon Musk's company has already completed seven operational crewed missions to the ISS for NASA using its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket; it's in the middle of its eighth such flight, which launched in March.

The first-ever crewed launch of Boeing's Starliner capsule has been delayed an additional week, thanks to a "buzzing" valve on its rocket ride. 

That launch, which will kick off a mission known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), was originally supposed to take place Monday night (May 6) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

The launch team called that attempt off about two hours before the planned liftoff, however, after noticing that an oxygen relief valve in the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage was "buzzing" — opening and closing very rapidly. ULA, Boeing and NASA initially pushed CFT's liftoff back to no earlier than Friday (May 10), but that's no longer the plan.

ULA has decided to replace the valve, which will require rolling the Starliner-Atlas V stack off the launch pad and back to an assembly building. As as result, CFT's launch is now targeted for no earlier than May 17, NASA announced in an update on Tuesday (May 7).

A May 17 launch, should it go forward, would occur at 6:16 p.m. EDT (2216 GMT). Whenever Starliner flies, you can watch the action live here at Space.com.

Related: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) for a roughly eight-day stay. CFT is a shakeout cruise designed to show that Starliner is ready to fly operational, six-month crewed missions to the orbiting lab.

After Wilmore and Williams disembarked from Starliner on Monday evening and headed back to their crew quarters at nearby Kennedy Space Center, ULA teams began testing and analyzing the troublesome valve.

Technicians "successfully commanded the valve closed, and the oscillations were temporarily dampened," NASA officials wrote in Tuesday's update.

"The oscillations then re-occurred twice during fuel removal operations," they added. "After evaluating the valve history, data signatures from the launch attempt, and assessing the risks relative to continued use, the ULA team determined the valve exceeded its qualification, and mission managers agreed to remove and replace the valve."

Boeing developed Starliner under a $4.2 billion contract awarded by NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014. SpaceX got a similar deal worth $2.6 billion at the same time for work on its Dragon capsule.

SpaceX flew its version of CFT, a two-astronaut test flight called Demo-2, back in 2020. The company has completed seven long-term astronaut missions to the ISS for NASA and is in the middle of its eighth, which is known, appropriately enough, as Crew-8. 

The first crewed flight of Boeing's new Starliner capsule has been pushed to the end of the week due to a technical issue.

Starliner was supposed to launch late Monday night (May 6) on Crew Flight Test (CFT), a roughly 10-day mission that will carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and back. But mission teams called the attempt off about two hours before Monday's planned liftoff, after identifying a faulty "oxygen relief valve" on the upper stage of Starliner's rocket ride, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V. The valve was "buzzing," opening and closing rapidly, during the launch countdown, forcing the delay, ULA officials said.

NASA, ULA and Boeing initially expressed optimism that the issue could be resolved quickly, perhaps even in time for another launch attempt on Tuesday night (May 7). But, early Tuesday morning, the teams announced that CFT will lift off no earlier than Friday night (May 10). 

"The delay allows teams to complete data analysis on a pressure regulation valve on the liquid oxygen tank of the Atlas V rocket's Centaur upper stage and determine whether it is necessary to replace the valve," NASA officials wrote in an update on Tuesday. 

A launch on Friday would occur at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT on May 11). There's an additional backup opportunity on Saturday (May 11), NASA officials said. Whenever CFT launches, you can watch the action here at Space.com.

Related: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

It's too soon to know if Starliner and the Atas V will be ready to fly on Friday or Saturday, however. That depends on whether ULA decides to replace the valve, which would require rolling the rocket off the launch pad and back to its assembly facility. 

Teams would then apply "tooling to support the Centaur, and the Starliner on top, and then we'd take off all the pressure and simply remove and replace the valve, pressurize it, remove the tooling, and then we'd be ready to roll back," ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in a post-scrub press conference on Monday night.

"That procedure takes several days," he added. So, if valve replacement turns out to be necessary, "it's unlikely we would be prepared to make another attempt before Sunday." 

CFT's two crewmembers are NASA's Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. After the scrub was announced, both astronauts disembarked from Starliner and headed back to the crew quarters at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which is next door to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, agency officials said.

In 2014, NASA awarded both Boeing and SpaceX multibillion-dollar contracts to fly astronauts to and from the ISS. 

SpaceX has been doing so since 2020 with its Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket; Elon Musk's company has already completed seven such operational crewed flights for NASA and is in the middle of mission number eight. Boeing, however, has experienced numerous delays in Starliner's development and has yet to launch a crew.

CAPE CANAVERAL — Starliner will wait at least four more days for its first crewed launch.

Boeing's new commercial spacecraft, Starliner, waved off its first launch attempt late tonight (May 6) due to a problem with an "oxygen relief valve on the Centaur Stage on the Atlas V," NASA posted on X. Atlas V, the flight's rocket manufactured by United Launch Alliance, has flown missions since 2002 with a 100 percent success rate, but this is its first mission with astronauts.

"The engineering team has evaluated the vehicle is not in a configuration where we can proceed with flight today," an official in Mission Control said in a callout broadcast on NASA Television roughly two hours and one minute before the scheduled launch at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0024 GMT May 7).

Friday (May 10) is not the earliest possible launch target, according to NASA. When Starliner flies, you can watch the event here at Space.com, via NASA Television. 

Related: Boeing's Starliner is a 'big piece of America's overall strategy for access to low Earth orbit,' astronaut says

Once it goes to space, Starliner will carry its first astronaut crew to the International Space Station: Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams. They are both former U.S. Navy test pilots as well as veteran International Space Station long-duration astronauts; their new Starliner mission is expected to spend about a week at the orbiting complex.

When Wilmore and Williams fly to space, they will be the first crew to do so from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station since Apollo 7 in 1968. They will also be the first humans to fly to space aboard an Atlas rocket since Gordon Cooper did so on Mercury-Atlas 9 in 1963.

NASA aims to have Starliner up and running for operational missions next year to meet its longstanding goal of sending two different spacecraft aloft from U.S. soil. The agency's other commercial crew vendor, SpaceX, has been sending crews to the ISS since its first test launch in 2020.

Space.com will provide further updates on the situation when NASA, Boeing or ULA issue them.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 2 a.m. EDT on May 7 with news of the new target launch date of May 10.

Update, 9 p.m. EDT: Boeing Starliner's launch has been scrubbed due to a valve issue on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Here is the link to our scrub story.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — When Boeing's Starliner capsule carries two astronauts to space tonight (May 6), at least 100 people in Mission Control will be on hand for support and guidance.

Tonight's mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), will be the first-ever crewed liftoff for Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. CFT will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams toward the International Space Station (ISS) at 10:34 p.m. (0234 GMT Tuesday, May 7) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here. You can watch it live here at Space.com, via NASA Television.

But not all the action is in Florida: Boeing and NASA are working together at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston to send this crew into space, marking the first time since the space shuttle era that a crewed spacecraft was controlled from Houston.

Among Starliner's vast support group is Teresa Kinney, the first-ever female chief engineer at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, on Florida's Space Coast. Kinney will sit as backup to Mission Control as a consultant for other engineers. While talented, some of the main controllers "jumped in late" compared to Kinney, she told Space.com. "So if you had a problem that they hadn't seen, or maybe some testing they hadn't been involved in, hopefully I can provide that continuity," she added.

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

Kinney has been working with NASA's Commercial Crew Program for years, mainly on the Starliner side; in fact, she has been on commercial crew since the days of the Constellation program. That was a Bush-era proposal from the early 2000s, later repealed, that also aimed to send astronauts to the moon and eventually Mars.

Kinney said her role evolved as the Commercial Crew Program did, as the hardware matured and testing continued. Contracts were first awarded in 2010, and both SpaceX and Boeing were selected in 2014 as the first commercial crew vendors to send astronauts to space.

"You never know what you don't know when you start developing hardware and doing tests and stuff," Kinney told Space.com at KSC. "As I started out, we are setting up verifications and asking, 'What is this thing going to look like? How are we going to do tests and analysis?' "

Models were complicated, as multiple partners were involved, including Boeing, NASA and United Launch Alliance (which is launching CFT with its Atlas V rocket). And both SpaceX and Boeing have experienced technical issues with their programs — involving parachute systems, for example — that had to be addressed as their spacecraft evolved.

Starliner, Kinney acknowledged, has had to deal with more issues than SpaceX's Dragon: The first Starliner flight to ISS failed to reach its destination in 2019 due to software glitches, although the follow-up uncrewed effort in 2022 got there after fixes were implemented. New issues were found in 2023 that further pushed back CFT, including with the parachutes and with flammable tape found wrapped around capsule wiring.

"The vehicle was actually a good design, but the problem is that it was a paper design," Kinney said. SpaceX, she pointed out, had a head start on its Crew Dragon spacecraft, as the company was already flying a cargo Dragon variant on robotic resupply missions to the ISS before launching its first crewed test flight in 2020. SpaceX has sent 11 other crews to ISS since then.

Boeing, by contrast, "literally was doing something new" with Starliner, she said. The company was working to leverage what it knew from past programs; Boeing was the prime contractor for the ISS, for example, and also builds the core stage for NASA's Space Launch System megarocket, which successfully launched the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission toward lunar orbit in late 2022.

But new lessons had to be learned as Starliner took on its first steps in space. Kinney said the questions that arose there are similar to what she has encountered in other programs: "You go, 'Well, what do I have to change? What should I change?' And so that was a lot of what they were doing."

Kinney cautioned that she cannot speak for everybody in Mission Control, but the folks she spoke with "are very excited" to see CFT get off the ground. The teams have "scrubbed through all their systems" to get ready for key flight review milestones ahead of liftoff, and continue to do preparations and simulations to get the astronauts safely off the ground.

"I love it when you work with a team that is so focused on the right things," Kinney said. "There's no shrinking violets in the group as far as safety and stuff. So I think it's going to be as good as we can can make it."

Update, 9 p.m. EDT: Boeing Starliner's launch has been scrubbed due to a valve issue on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Here is the link to our scrub story.

CAPE CANAVERAL — Atlas V is a venerable rocket, but it's about to break new territory: Carrying humans instead of uncrewed missions on board.

United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket has been in service for two decades, carrying missions like the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter or the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission to asteroid Bennu since 2002. But as soon as today (May 6) its task is to send two NASA astronauts on board Boeing Starliner.

That mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) at 10:34 p.m. (0234 GMT Tuesday, May 7). And it was not an easy task to make sure Atlas V was ready to carry them from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

"It was between 11,000 and 12,000 verifications that had to be looked at and assessed by our team," Ian Kappes, deputy manager for the launch vehicle system for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told Space.com during an interview here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, nearby the launch pad. "If you asked me, 'How do you know that you're ready?' That's how I know I'm ready. We worked as one team, to just power through and look at this vehicle."

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

Kappes has been with the commercial crew program since 2014, working his way up from avionics software to his current position. Previous uncrewed launches of Starliner in 2019 and 2022 helped "buy off risk" for CFT's launch opportunity, he said, but making sure the human rating stuck required examining data that was sometimes 20 or 25 years old.

"Some of it was hand calculations; I kid you not," he said, as the ULA team examined data and re-imagined it for astronauts on board. Questions arose about matters such as the abort system, vehicle accelerations and avionics, among many other matters.

While ULA has flown Atlas V with 100 percent success since the debut launch in 2002, Kappes said the team does not "want to slide into the stance of, 'You've flown so many. So you're good to go.' Right? Because that you can get into that trap real quick."

Each item was therefore checked against NASA standards for human spaceflight requirements. The ascent phase required discussion about guidance and navigation, flight mechanics, loads on the spacecraft and of course aborts, Kim Ess, manager of the integrated performance office in NASA's Commercial Crew Program, also told Space.com.

"When we launch, we want the ascent trajectory to be correct; to get us where we want to go, and that the staging occurs at the right location, and that there's no harm to the public, or the crew or the station. Those are our priorities," she said.

Even the crew access tower, which has been worked on for nearly a decade, was newer infrastructure that had to also meet stringent requirements from Space Force as that is where the tower is used. 

A lot of the discussion was making sure that not only that safety was met, but the safety requirements of NASA and Space Force aligned in such a way to make that possible, Crystal Jones, manager of the commercial crew program's ground and mission operations office, told Space.com.

With launch now hours away, "Just feel a little surreal, honestly, that we're here. We all worked so hard to get to this point," Jones said. "We're finally here, and we're ready. I think everyone's really confident in our mission."

Jones said that during a recent flight test readiness review, the team felt an "uncomfortable nervousness" because they are so close to launch after a long journey. "But it's a good thing, because it causes us to really dig deep and make sure that we're ready. I think we are. I think the whole team is confident that we're ready to fly."

CAPE CANAVERAL — May the rocket's Force be with you!

An Atlas V rocket rolled out to its launch pad on Saturday (May 4), also Star Wars Day, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station days before its historic first mission with astronauts. Atop the United Launch Alliance booster was Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which will also make its debut flight with humans onboard after launching no earlier than Monday (May 6).

The instantaneous launch window opens at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 GMT on Tuesday, May 7) and you can watch the historic International Space Station (ISS) mission live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA Television.

The mission, called Crew Flight Test (CFT), will send two veteran NASA astronauts and former U.S. Navy test pilots aloft: Butch Wilmore will command the mission and Suni Williams will be the pilot. The duo are quarantining at the nearby Kennedy Space Center.

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

I joined a group of about 35 reporters on a small hill about a mile away from Space Launch Complex 41 for my first-ever Floridian rocket rollout in which the booster was always going the right way towards the pad.

Back in August 2006, I made an attempt to see mission STS-115 fly to the ISS. Then life happened. During my flight from Canada to the Space Coast, space shuttle Atlantis's launch pad was hit by lightning. As NASA took time to double-check all systems, Tropical Storm Ernesto made its way up the coast. 

So instead of a launch, I witnessed Atlantis being pulled back towards shelter — and then pause in its path to the Vehicle Assembly Building, and get pulled back to the launch pad when the tropical storm shifted far enough away to make that the safe choice. I definitely missed that launch, but no regrets, as that situation was a pretty unique one.

Starliner's presence here two decades later is also unique, as the first spacecraft to bring astronauts to space from the Cape Canaveral side since Apollo 7 on Oct. 11, 1968. 

And no human has ridden any Atlas rocket since Gordon Cooper's Mercury-Atlas 9 mission on May 15, 1963 (almost exactly 61 years before Starliner's CFT launch attempt.)

If CFT goes to plan, Boeing will soon join SpaceX in sending astronauts for six months at a time to the ISS. That's after both companies received commercial crew contracts from NASA in 2014, valuing Boeing's at $4.2 billion back then, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion.

While SpaceX has sent 12 crewed missions to ISS since 2020, including an astronaut test flight, Starliner's waited four extra years. Boeing's first ISS flight in December 2019 was dogged with so many computer glitches that Starliner never made it to its assigned orbit. After the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, and dozens of fixes were implemented, and Starliner at last made a successful second uncrewed test flight in May 2022.

CFT was also expected to launch earlier, most recently 2023. Critical issues found last year delayed that, however, as Boeing officials sought to address issues with the loads on the capsule's main parachutes, as well as wiring covered in flammable tape. 

NASA and Boeing have carefully gone over all details ahead of this flight and maintained at a press conference Friday (May 3) that all is ready to go safety-wise. Weather is also 95% go for Monday's launch attempt on the Space Coast; that said, checks for proper technical fit and good weather will continue up to the moment of liftoff.

Related: 1st Boeing Starliner astronauts are ready to launch to the ISS for NASA (exclusive)

The spacecraft's first operational mission will be Starliner-1, no earlier than 2025, and it will send at least three astronauts to the ISS: NASA's Mike Fincke (who is also serving as a CFT backup astronaut), alongside NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk (the capcom for CFT's ascent phase.)

NASA plans to alternate SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's Starliner in sending up astronauts at least every six months from U.S. soil. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft will also continue to send some agency astronauts aloft, for technical and policy reasons.

While NASA aims to have these commercial crew vehicles working past the lifetime of ISS, the orbiting complex is expected to finish operations in 2030. Russia may pull out as soon as 2028, although all timelines are subject to flux as the countries work on implementing next-generation space programs.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — The new Starliner spacecraft is "go" for its first-ever astronaut launch on Monday (May 6), Boeing and NASA officials announced today (May 3).

Barring bad weather or any last-minute technical issues, Starliner was cleared to send two veteran NASA astronauts and former U.S. Navy test pilots to the International Space Station (ISS). On board this mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), will be commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams.

The duo are completing last-minute training items and quarantining here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center ahead of their historic liftoff, which is scheduled for Mondauy at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 GMT on Tuesday, May 7) from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Coverage will run live here on Space.com, via NASA Television.

"We had the launch readiness review, and everyone polled 'go' to proceed," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said during a press conference today.

CFT will not only be the first time that Boeing's Starliner carries astronauts, but also the first time that United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket takes on that task. Rollout of the stacked rocket will take place tomorrow (May 4).

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

Pending the success of CFT, Boeing will join SpaceX in sending operational, six-month-long crewed missions to the ISS. Both companies received commercial crew contracts from NASA in 2014, with Boeing's valued at $4.2 billion back then, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. 

SpaceX has since launched 12 crewed missions to the ISS, including a test flight in 2020, while Starliner's first crewed effort has been delayed by several issues. The Boeing vehicle's first uncrewed flight to the ISS, which launched in December 2019, failed to reach its destination due to technical glitches. The pandemic, and the need to address the issues that arose on that first flight, delayed Starliner's second uncrewed test flight until May 2022. That effort was successful, reaching the ISS and meeting all of its other major objectives.

CFT was then slated to launch in 2023 — until more critical issues were uncovered, such as problems with the capsule's main parachutes and flammable tape on the capsule's wiring. These issues are behind the team, everyone has emphasized, and CFT is ready to go. If this first astronaut flight goes well, the debut operational crewed mission of Starliner should follow in 2025.

NASA and Boeing teams conducted a flight readiness review for CFT last week. That analysis identified two issues that required more attention: a valve needed to be replaced at the launch pad, and engineers wanted to further study contingency scenarios for the jettisoning of Starliner's forward heat shield during reentry to Earth's atmosphere. 

That work has now been completed to the teams' satisfaction, Stich said today.

Related: 1st Boeing Starliner astronauts are ready to launch to the ISS for NASA (exclusive)

Starliner-1, the capsule's first operational mission, is slated to send three astronauts to the ISS: NASA's Mike Fincke (who is also serving as a CFT backup astronaut), alongside NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk.

But that is pending the success of CFT, which will see Williams and Wilmore take manual control of the spacecraft numerous times, test emergency procedures for power-up and communications, and otherwise put the Starliner spacecraft through its paces for future missions.

The vision from NASA is for SpaceX's Dragon, Starliner and Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to continue sending astronaut crews to the ISS for the next several years. A selection of NASA astronauts continue to use Soyuz for policy and backup reasons, and Russia has committed to sending crews aloft until at least 2028. 

While Starliner is not manifested for private missions yet, Boeing will fulfill something like six or seven missions for NASA during the nominal lifetime of ISS to 2030. A handful of private space stations are in the works, so there may still be destinations for Starliner, Dragon and Soyuz after the ISS retires.

HOUSTON — Everyone thought Boeing's new Starliner spacecraft would already have flown astronauts sooner by now.

Starliner is ready to carry two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time no earlier than Monday (May 6), but it's been a long road to get here. Instead of one uncrewed test mission to the ISS, Boeing needed two to meet its objectives. The pandemic and numerous technical issues further delayed the capsule's first astronaut launch.

But safety always needs to come first, NASA and Boeing officials emphasized during a media briefing on March 22 here at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Through years of extra work, the teams worked carefully towards their objective of launching astronauts. And when new problems arose, they would continue to work to resolve them, Boeing's Mark Nappi said to reporters.

"I don't call it frustrating at all," Nappi, program manager of Boeing's commercial crew program, said of the longer-than-expected wait. "We would like to have been further along at this time. There's no doubt about that. But we're here, and we're prepared, and we're ready to fly."

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

The first Starliner mission with astronauts, called Crew Flight Test or CFT, will send two veteran NASA astronauts and former Navy test pilots to the ISS: commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams. They will be in space for a bit over a week after lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. 

The astronauts will put their decades of space and aviation experience to use, performing thorough checkouts of the spacecraft and making sure it meets all major objectives for automatic and manual flying. If Starliner passes all of its CFT tests, the way will be clear for operational, six-month Starliner ISS missions, starting with Starliner-1 in 2025.

CFT follows two uncrewed flights by Starliner. A December 2019 mission, called Orbital Flight Test (OFT), did not reach the ISS as planned. Boeing spent several years implementing dozens of fixes to the spacecraft, amid the pandemic, and succeeded: a 2022 attempt (OFT 2) reached the ISS and met all other major flight objectives.

More trouble arose in summer 2023, however, when teams uncovered new issues with Starliner that further delayed human spaceflight. For example: the suspension lines of Starliner's main parachutes couldn't handle as much mass as engineers thought they could, and flammable P213 tape covered much of the capsule's wiring.

Both NASA and Boeing's representatives at the March 22 briefing emphasized that the two test flights did their job: they caught problems before people climbed on board. Steve Stich, head of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told reporters that he closely involved the astronauts of CFT and Starliner-1 to address all issues.

"From my perspective, so far, it seems like we've looked through everything," Stich said. "We've done, in many cases, independent analysis ... of landing loads, abort performance, rendezvous and docking, all those sorts of things. And I would say in the timeframe that we've had from last summer to now, we've really spent that time testing the flight software in a very integrated manner in the Boeing ASIL [Avionics and Software Integration Lab] Facility."

"We've done everything we can to make sure we're not missing things," Stich added. "I tend to ask a lot of questions. I'm kind of a more of a hands-on, I would say, program manager. Maybe a little bit of an engineer at heart. So I try to probe in areas to make sure that we haven't missed something. 

"The last parachute test gave us a heck of a lot of confidence in that system," he continued. "We had more instrumentation, I would say, on that parachute test than we've had in the past, looking at the dynamics of how the parachutes actually come out of the parachute compartment — and computed the margins on those parachutes and have a lot of confidence in that system.

"What we do every day is to make sure you haven't missed something. Spaceflight is so complicated. I think we take it one step at a time, looking at all the data. We've closed out all the in-flight anomalies from OFT to our satisfaction. And now we're going to go through that [CFT] flight readiness process."

Related: 1st Boeing Starliner astronauts are ready to launch to the ISS for NASA (exclusive)

While all Starliner systems are under scrutiny, one to especially highlight for CFT is the life support system that provides oxygen to the astronauts and removes carbon dioxide, among other tasks. That system hasn't been tested with people on board, but the briefing participants emphasized there has been robust ground testing to get ready for the spaceflight.

Stich said a recent integrated test with the astronauts at Boeing's Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility, located at KSC, allowed Williams and Wilmore to "put it [the life support system] through its paces a little bit." He said the test "gave us a lot of good data, and confidence that ecosystem will perform as we need to with Suni and Butch on board."

Nappi pointed to icing in the thermal control system during the uncrewed OFT, which "probably stemmed more from not having crew on board." Boeing, however, "made some changes during this last flow to make sure that doesn't happen again."

Adding crew to the vehicle will generate more heat during spaceflight than flying Starliner without humans on board, he said. Boeing will be evaluating Starliner to see how the vehicle's cooling system responds to that, whether humidity will stay constant, and other possible impacts.

In 2014, both Boeing and SpaceX won NASA contracts to fly astronauts to and from the ISS, to fill the shoes of the agency's space shuttle, which retired in 2011. Boeing's contract is valued at $4.2 billion, while SpaceX's is worth $2.6 billion. 

SpaceX has sent 11 operational crewed missions to the ISS with its Crew Dragon so far: eight for NASA's commercial crew program, and three shorter-term missions on behalf of Houston-based company Axiom Space. 

A handful of NASA astronauts also fly aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft for technical and policy reasons, following long-established interagency practice. All NASA astronauts also flew to the ISS on Soyuz after the shuttle's retirement in 2011 and SpaceX's first crewed mission, the Demo-2 test flight, in 2020.

The long-awaited Crewed Flight Test (CFT) of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is finally upon us.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch Starliner with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a shakedown mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 6. This will be Starliner's third flight, but the capsule's first with a crew aboard. 

With the spacecraft day's away from its crewed debut, ULA has released a short video highlighting how Starliner's Atlas V launch vehicle was stacked and integrated with the spacecraft.

Related: How to watch Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut launch webcasts live

ULA posted the video on X, formerly Twitter, a week before Starliner's scheduled launch, with the caption, "Reigniting Atlas' legacy of launching humans to space, ULA is using an #AtlasV rocket to launch the Crew Flight Test. Check out how the Atlas V rocket was stacked ahead of next week's launch."

With Starliner ready for flight, the video lays out ULA's process for assembling and stacking the Atlas V rocket, mating it with the Starliner spacecraft, rolling the stack to SLC-41, and other significant milestones leading up to the moment of launch.

Atlas V is powered by two RD-180 rocket engines, paired for this flight with two solid rocket boosters (SRBs). The launch vehicle's first stage stands 106.5 feet (32.5 meters) tall, and is joined with its Centaur upper stage, propelled by a pair of RL-10A rocket engines. Combined with Starliner, the whole rocket stands at  172 feet (52.4 meters).

The trio are stacked inside ULA's vertical integration facility (VIF) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida, and are scheduled to roll out the SLC-41 at 10 a.m. this Saturday, May 4. 

ULA's video also points out some of the fueling and crew boarding procedures during the mission's launch countdown. Wilmore and Williams will arrive at the launchpad about three hours prior to liftoff, aided by ULA's "Blue Team," as mission operators run through prelaunch checklists leading up to liftoff. 

Starliner is scheduled to launch Monday, May 6, at 10:34 p.m. EDT, and will rendezvous with the ISS May 8, at 12:48 a.m. EDT (0648 GMT). During the shakedown flight, Wilmore and Williams will test the gamut of Starliner's systems, spending about 10 days on the space station before returning to Earth.

This mission will be Starliner's third flight. In 2019, the first of Starliner's uncrewed test flights failed to complete its mission of rendezvousing with the ISS due to software issues. Another launch in 2022 managed to meet all NASA and Boeing's major objectives for the spacecraft. However, after discovering the flammable nature of the tape used around much of Starliner's internal wiring, the crewed launch was further delayed.

HOUSTON — A busy week is ahead of the first Starliner astronauts after their scheduled launch on May 6.

Astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams will be the first NASA crew to fly to space aboard Boeing Starliner. Their mission, known as Crew Flight Test, will run for about a week at the International Space Station (ISS) to certify Starliner for future missions to last six months or so.

Boeing and SpaceX received contracts from NASA in 2014 for commercial crew missions to the ISS. Boeing's contract for the Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. Despite the lower contract amount, SpaceX beat Boeing to the space station and has been running operational ISS missions since 2020. Starliner ran two uncrewed test flights in 2019 and 2022, but astronaut flights were delayed due to several technical problems that officials say are all resolved now.

There are several key milestones to look for after the Starliner astronauts launch to space at Cape Canaveral, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) near Orlando, Florida. The teams shared those milestones with reporters during a media tour here, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, on March 22. Here are some of the big events of the mission that the astronauts and their support teams on the ground will be getting ready for.

Related: 1st Boeing Starliner astronauts are ready to launch to the ISS for NASA (exclusive)

Launch

The final hours before launch of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will be busy, NASA Starliner flight director Mike Lammers told reporters during a briefing at JSC. The crew will suit up in their quarantine facility at KSC and do the traditional crew walkout outside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building. They will arrive at the pad 2 hours and 15 minutes before launch and go inside Starliner.

The spacecraft will be transferred to internal power at 80 minutes before launch, and ground teams will then do a leak check on the spacecraft 50 minutes before launch. Next, the crew access arms will be retracted 11 minutes before launch.

The last four minutes will be particularly busy, with numerous callouts, but a notable one is when the launch abort system will be armed about 75 seconds before launch.

"It's already been a busy day, but then we have liftoff. That's where my real work starts," Lammers said, noting this will be the first crewed ascent flown out of Mission Control at JSC since the final space shuttle mission, STS-135, in 2011. (SpaceX has its own mission control operations in Hawthorne, California.)

Atlas V is equipped with two solid rocket boosters or SRBs. Shortly after leaving the pad, the rocket will begin maneuvering to adjust its trajectory towards orbit. The SRBs will burn for about 90 seconds, and once spent, their empty casings will keep riding with the core stage until 2.5 minutes after launch. They will be then released and Atlas V will continue its first-stage burn until four minutes after launch.

"There's about a 15-second pause as the first stage separates [a] cover that covers a docking system," Lammers explained. Atlas V will also discard a special "aeroskirt," a 70-inch-long (178 centimeters) structure integrated into the Launch Vehicle Adapter that links Starliner up with the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage.

Then the second stage will light, with two RL-10 engines on that Centaur stage bringing the crew into space. The second stage will shut off 12 minutes after launch, and the spacecraft will separate 15 minutes after launch.

"We're suborbital still here," Lammers continued, "so we've got to do another burn." The burns for orbit will happen twice, at 31 minutes and at 1 hour and 15 minutes into the mission. Next will come the approach and docking to ISS.

If necessary, several abort sites will be on standby underneath the launch path: The pad area around Florida; an ocean zone east of Cape Cod in the Atlantic Ocean; a second ocean zone further east near St. John's, Newfoundland; and the ocean west of Shannon, Ireland.

ISS cruise

Once the launch is finished, NASA flight director Ed Van Cise joked at the same press conference, one would think it would be "a great, relaxing ride to the space station." 

While operational missions aim to be that way, that cannot the case for the first Starliner as the astronauts will be doing tests for both nominal scenarios, and off-nominal scenarios.

"We're be doing things like purposely pointing it in an orientation that's say, not exactly the normal orientation for the mission, and then having the crew manually fly the spacecraft back into the direction it should be pointing," he said. "We also want to make sure that if for some reason the vehicle doesn't know where the communication satellites are located, that crew can manually fly the spacecraft to point the antennas at the satellite."

The astronauts will also "trick" the spacecraft "into thinking that it doesn't know where it is in space," Van Cise said, after which the crew will manually fly the spacecraft using a star tracker. The stars would be used to rebuild the navigation system of Starliner if anything were to go awry.

On top of these tests will be checkouts of avionics and thrusters, and having the crew do far more manual flying than required during a normal mission. The orientation of the spacecraft will also be changed to point Starliner's solar arrays towards the sun, to practice the procedure for recharging batteries if ever needed. 

Following a crew sleep period, Wilmore and Williams will be roughly 1,240 miles (2,000 km) from the ISS and will then make a rendezvous and docking.

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

ISS docking

Starliner must approach the ISS within a seven-degree angle of safety. The spacecraft is designed to dock autonomously, but Williams and Wilmore are also trained to take over manually should that be needed.

"During approach, rendezvous, and docking with the station, the Starliner team will assess spacecraft thruster performance for manual abort scenarios, conduct communication checkouts, test manual and automated navigation, and evaluate life support systems. Crew aboard the station will monitor the spacecraft's approach and the Starliner crew would command any necessary aborts," NASA officials wrote of the procedure.

"Starliner will autonomously dock to the forward-facing port of the Harmony module," the agency added. "The test objective is to perform hatch opening and closing operations, configure the spacecraft for its time docked to the station, and transfer emergency equipment into the station."

ISS mission

"Our main goals of the docking mission are ... practice and validate the plan operations for long-duration missions," NASA flight director Vincent LaCourt said at the same press conference at JSC. The crew will also practice for contingencies and perform cargo operations.

The first hours after docking will include opening the hatches, going on to the space station and performing a welcome ceremony that will run on NASA Television. The ISS crew will then give the Starliner astronauts a safety briefing, and the approximately one-week mission will begin.

On the second day of docking, all the cargo will be unloaded and Starliner will be put into a "quiescent" mode, meaning extra computers will be powered off while essential equipment like lights, displays and ventilation will run as needed. 

Read more: How to watch Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut launch webcasts live online

Day 3 of docking will be a "safe haven" practice. The Starliner crew will practice an emergency run to their spacecraft, including a power-up, in case of future ISS situations that may need them (like a meteorite strike or fire.) Since operational crews would have four astronauts and not two, Wilmore and Williams will "borrow" two ISS crew members to join them.

"We'll go into Starliner, they'll close the hatch [and] basically completely power up the vehicle on their own to practice if they're getting ready for an emergency undock and return," LaCourt said.

On Day 4 of docking, the crew will do a complete power-up of Starliner and make sure the equipment is working. From there, the mission plan may change depending on how long Starliner remains docked at the station. 

While the crew could leave as early as Day 8 of docking, extra days on the mission would allow them to pick up ISS tasks to help the main crew — and take some extra time off to rest ahead of landing. Before undocking, the crew will do a farewell event on television, don their spacesuits and close the hatch for departure.

Undocking, re-entry and landing

Undocking will be timed for 6.5 hours after landing, with the crew expected to move to the zenith of the ISS before turning on the engines for a departure burn.  

Unlike a normal mission, the crew will briefly take manual control of the spacecraft during the cruise home to continue testing. "I like to call [this] stick and rudder flying; in fact, they can even deorbit and land in that mode," Lammers said. The crew will evaluate how the spacecraft performs in manual operations, and how that compares with the simulators in which they practiced procedures before the launch.

After a couple of orbits of Earth, the crew will finally execute a deorbit burn over the Pacific Ocean. Starliner's primary landing zone is White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, with two backup areas available: Willcox Playa east of Tucson, Arizona and Dugway Proving Ground west of Salt Lake City.

The prime landing time is at night due to weather constraints. The main constraints are low winds that are less than 10 knots and cool temperatures to protect the landing teams that will be wearing special safety suits to protect against potential leaks on the spacecraft, Lammers said. Infrared tracking and lighting will help with the darkness.

The crew will point their heat shield at the atmosphere for re-entry. Around 30,000 feet (9 km) high, the crew will jettison that heat shield and then deploy their parachute drogues. The three main chutes will deploy at 8,000 feet (2.5 km). Touchdown will happen in the desert, shortly after the airbags deploy.

A landing team will be on site, roughly 3 miles (5 km) away to avoid any falling pieces from the spacecraft. The astronauts will throw a switch to jettison their chutes, as the landing team makes their approach. Once the landing team arrives at the spacecraft, they will do brief safety check and then remove the crew. Both astronauts will be assessed medically in the field before being flown back to Houston for normal post-flight medical checks, debriefings and operations.

What's next

The first operational mission for Starliner, known as Starliner-1, is set for early 2025 at the earliest. The crew for that mission is NASA's Scott Tingle, NASA's Mike Fincke and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk and they are already deep in training. (Kutryk will also serve as capcom for the launch phase of CFT.) 

Boeing is then expected to run regular Starliner missions to the ISS, alongside SpaceX. Currently the commercial crew program aims to bring one astronaut crew to the orbiting complex every six months. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft also does the same, occasionally with NASA astronauts on board for technical and policy reasons.

The ISS is currently expected to host missions until 2030, unless upcoming commercial space stations are not yet ready. Russia has committed to missions until at least 2028, but also may extend that partnership. 

As for missions outside the ISS, Boeing officials have said they want to focus on NASA obligations first before considering private Starliner missions.

Two NASA astronauts are days away from partaking in a new spacecraft's first-ever human launch — if schedules hold, that is.

Boeing Starliner's debut crew, Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams, told reporters on Wednesday (May 1) that their test pilot experience with the U.S. Navy will help them assess the spacecraft during its debut crewed launch. Liftoff is currently set for Monday (May 6) at 10:34 p.m. EDT (0234 GMT May 7). The event will be livestreamed here at Space.com, via NASA Television.

"It almost feels unreal," Williams, who will serve as the mission pilot, said of the launch date during a livestreamed press conference at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The discussion was conducted remotely because both Williams and Wilmore are currently quarantining for the impending journey.

Williams' sentiment is due to the fact she has been in line for nearly a decade, waiting to snag a spot on a commercial crew flight; her original assignment to the related NASA program came in 2015 because of her expertise with spacecraft development. Her slot on this mission, Crew Flight Test (CFT), came in 2022. For his part, Wilmore has been in the program queue since at least 2019, initially selected as a backup for the mission before being reassigned to the CFT prime crew in October 2020.

At last, CFT appears to be within reach. Its historic liftoff will mount the duo atop the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket — another first for humans. The following week or so will include numerous tests of Starliner and a brief visit to the International Space Station (ISS).

Related: 2 astronaut taxis: Why NASA wants both Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Dragon

Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, have at least 11,000 hours of collective flight experience behind them, much of it in high-performance jets. They are also both veterans of NASA's space shuttle and Russia's Soyuz spacecraft programs, have served as long-duration astronauts on past ISS missions, and have spent decades of time as trainers and supports for other astronauts besides.

"Well goodness, that's really the reason that we are here," Wilmore said when Space.com asked how the duo's test pilot experience helped with Starliner's development and preparation for CFT's checkouts in orbit. Both Wilmore and Williams are veterans of the prestigious U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, and Wilmore said an exchange he had with the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School has prepared him for this moment as well.

"That background of understanding test acquisition was required to certify various components ... [and] the vital importance of making sure that in an integrated fashion, everything works as planned. That's been invaluable for the process," Wilmore said of bringing his piloting work to bear on Starliner's development. Still, he noted that decades ago, "I don't think either one of us ever dreamed that we'd be associated with the first flight of a brand-new spacecraft."

Having accrued thousands of hours in cockpits to evaluate high-performance aircraft, the astronauts have an instinct about the right types of questions to ask about spacecraft capabilities —  for instance, why displays are showing certain kinds of information. Their experience especially has implications for understanding crucial safety maneuvers. As Williams puts it: "How is that [information] going to help me? How is that going to lead me down a wrong path, or right path?" 

Manual flying, of which CFT will feature plenty to certify Starliner for future contingencies, is another reason these astronauts are on board. Aside from its extensive automatic systems, Starliner features both a rotational hand controller and a translational hand controller. These controllers are similar to what the crew has been fully entrenched with from "day one of Test Pilot School," Williams said. As such, the naval aviators can evaluate the spacecraft's handling qualities and work alongside ground teams to make sure the procedures aren't just working, but working well.

The astronauts also aim to ensure that what they see on the ground, during simulations, represents what they'd see during the real-life mission. Questions they ask in the simulator, Wilmore emphasized, include the following: "If you're testing a couple of boxes that are integrated together, what are those boxes? Are those boxes representative of what we have in the spacecraft? What's the firmware in those boxes?" Answering those questions are important to make sure "the test is representative of what the spacecraft is on orbit."

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

The CFT astronauts' experience will come to the fore as Boeing seeks to join SpaceX as a regular supplier of astronaut spacecraft for long-duration stints to the ISS. Both companies received billion-dollar-scale contracts from NASA in 2014 for commercial crew missions. 

Boeing's contract for Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion in 2014 dollars, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion. (Soyuz also continues to send some NASA astronauts aloft for policy and backup reasons, under separate NASA funding.)

SpaceX flew its first test Crew Dragon astronaut flight in 2020; 11 operational ones to ISS swiftly followed. Boeing, however, required extra time and testing. The first uncrewed Starliner test flight in 2019 failed to reach the ISS as planned after software glitches stranded the spacecraft in the wrong orbit. The second attempt in 2022 got to ISS safely, however, as dozens of implemented fixes solved the issue.

CFT was then expected to fly last year, but was delayed by several months because new technical problems arose. The suspension lines of Starliner's main parachutes, for example, could handle less load than engineers thought. The capsule's wiring was also revealed to be largely covered in flammable P213 tape.

Wilmore says that what others term "setbacks," however, he and the team see instead as "leaps and bounds forward." This is rooted in the nature of developmental programs like Starliner that allows problems to be fixed before humans actually climb on board, no matter the timeline. As issues arise, sometimes unanticipated ones, "we rectify that in the spacecraft."

In past press conferences, Wilmore has also emphasized the role of CFT is primarily developmental. Thus, he explains, despite all of the team's hard work, some unknowns cannot be sorted until astronauts get inside the spacecraft. Pending the mission's success, the next excursion will be much longer: Starliner-1 is expected to lift off in 2025 on the first operational, crewed six-month mission.

Related: 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

The astronauts of Starliner-1 are also deeply integrated in CFT's training and mission operations. Starliner-1 commander and NASA astronaut Mike Fincke is serving as a backup on CFT; the other crew members for Starliner-1 are NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk. 

Given the delays in Starliner's first astronaut test, several astronauts have either been shuffled from CFT and Starliner-1 to other missions, or reassigned between Starliner flights to meet operational requirements for NASA's space station program. So, despite their extensive flight experience that eventually brought them on CFT, both Williams and Wilmore said the "stars aligned" to put them in these seats.

"It's a very humble position to be in. I'm grateful," Wilmore said of being one of the first to fly a new spacecraft. He cited the example of Apollo 16 astronaut and moonwalker John Young, a veteran of three space programs (Gemini, Apollo and space shuttle) who also was a Navy test pilot. Young's long spacecraft resume included commanding the first space shuttle test flight, STS-1, in 1981.

"To be able to follow along and do something that he did is just very humbling," said Wilmore, who briefly worked in the astronaut office at NASA's Johnson Space Center at the same time as Young (who died at age 87 in 2018). "He was a test pilot. The astronaut's astronaut, so to speak."

"I think we just want to do our job right, and do the best that we can," added Williams of the milestone mission. "Here we are on this spacecraft, for the first time that it will fly. But I think it's just a result of doing your job and being ready to take any challenge that our country, and our office, is going to give us."

Even in quarantine, the first NASA astronauts to fly aboard Boeing Starliner are still practicing their mission just a week before launch.

NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams finished a big dress rehearsal on Friday (April 26) for their mission aboard Boeing Starliner, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT). Training continues for their scheduled May 6 liftoff to the International Space Station.

With backup astronaut Mike Fincke nearby, the duo did a simulated launch near Orlando, Florida. This included donning spacesuits, driving in a new Airstream Astrovan II to the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, and climbing into their spacecraft.

"As Edna Mode said, 'Luck favors the prepared'," Fincke wrote on X, formerly Twitter, quoting an iconic character from Pixar's 2004 movie "The Incredibles" about a superhero family. "We will be ready for launch day!"

Related: 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS on May 6 (photos)

Williams and Wilmore also recently performed a video tour of one of their simulators, called the Boeing Mission Trainer, to demonstrate procedures for launch and landing. 

The trainer is used for emergency egress training and cargo operations at NASA Johnson Space Center's (JSC) Space Vehicle Mockup Facility (Building 9) in Houston, in essentially a giant warehouse full of mockup spacecraft for various astronaut missions.

Williams carefully nudged herself inside the trainer and used handholds on the ceiling to demonstrate how she and Wilmore will squeeze into their seats during launch day. "This is my seat. So I have access to all the displays and controls as well. And we'll be working side by side, together," she said in the video on NASA's Commercial Crew account on X, uploaded Friday. 

"It's a pretty comfortable chair. I'm going to take a nap now," Williams joked, closing her eyes while relaxing in the seat.

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

Both Boeing and SpaceX received lucrative contracts from NASA in 2014 to send commercial crew missions to the ISS, after the space shuttle retired in 2011. In the interim, NASA flew all crews on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft until the first SpaceX test flight in 2020; some Americans still fly on Soyuz for technical and policy reasons, too.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon has flown 11 operational missions with astronauts to the ISS in the last four years, but Starliner met numerous technical snags. Starliner's first uncrewed flight to the ISS in 2019 did not reach its destination due to numerous software glitches. Dozens of fixes later, a second uncrewed ISS flight made it to the orbiting facility in 2022.

CFT was delayed further, however, in 2023 after Boeing and NASA uncovered new issues. Some of the most critical included problems with the main parachutes (the suspension lines carried less load than engineers thought) and wiring (largely covered with flammable P213 tape).

During a media tour at JSC in March that Space.com attended, however, Boeing and NASA officials all emphasized the spacecraft's past issues are behind them. The astronauts have also said the same, although as former U.S. Navy test pilots they also know that debut flight tests with humans will uncover new issues. "When you do test, you expect to find things. We expect to find things," Wilmore said in livestreamed remarks on NASA Television from KSC on April 25.

Related: 1st Boeing Starliner astronauts are ready to launch to the ISS for NASA (exclusive)

The Starliner spacecraft Wilmore and Williams are using has been to space once before, on that 2019 excursion known as Orbital Flight Test. It is now atop Atlas V in ULA's vertical integration facility, not far from Space Launch Complex 41 where it will launch to ISS for an approximately week-long mission.

Fincke, who will command the first operational mission to the ISS no earlier than 2025, showed off the spacecraft's harmless scorch mark from its re-entry five years ago in a picture on X, formerly Twitter. "Caught this picture of Butch [Wilmore] right before starting the crew ingress procedures with #Boeing's most excellent pad team," Fincke wrote.

CFT passed its latest flight readiness review on Thursday (April 25), although as with all launches, safety and weather checks will continue all the way through the time it lifts off. 

After launching, Wilmore and Williams will do a number of tests to certify the Starliner spacecraft for operational missions. Procedures include a lot of manual flying in case future crews need to override the automatic systems, testing an emergency power-up using the solar panels, and simulating scenarios where a crew loses communications with Mission Control in Houston, where both Boeing and NASA officials will be working with the CFT astronauts.

If CFT's flight goes to plan, Fincke will command the first operational mission (Starliner-1) in early 2025 at the earliest, for a normal half-year rotation on the ISS. Also on board Starliner-1 will be NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk. 

The ISS is expected to keep accepting crews until 2030. SpaceX and Boeing will alternate astronaut missions to the orbiting facility to keep it fully staffed, alongside Soyuz, which delivers Russian cosmonaut-led crews. Russia has committed to ISS flights until at least 2028.

Boeing says it may sign up private astronauts for future Starliner missions, but the focus is on NASA for now.

The spacecraft's program manager, Mark Nappi, told reporters Thursday (April 25) the company is very focused on flying the first Starliner mission for NASA with astronauts on board. That mission, Crew Flight Test (CFT), will see NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams rocket to space aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket no earlier than May 6.

"It [CFT] really is all of our attention at this point," Nappi said during a telephone press conference from NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Orlando, near the launch site. After that, Boeing will make sure it has enough spacecraft manufactured for future NASA astronaut flights, which are expected to run to six or seven.

Private flights are a possibility, but not the concern for now given they are building out NASA flights through the International Space Station's possible retirement in 2030, he added. "We've got plenty of time to think about what's after that," Nappi added.

Related: I flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in 4 different simulators. Here's what I learned (video, photos)

Boeing's decision stands in contrast to the other private company that sends astronauts up to the ISS: SpaceX. 

Three years after the space shuttle's retirement in 2011, both SpaceX and Boeing received contracts from NASA to send commercial crew missions to the ISS. As of 2014, when the contracts were announced, Boeing's commercial crew contract for Starliner is valued at $4.2 billion, compared to SpaceX's $2.6 billion.

SpaceX sent its first test mission to the ISS in 2020 and has provided 11 more astronaut flights to the complex since: Eight half-year missions for NASA, and three approximately two-week missions for private astronaut company Axiom Space. 

Axiom is in fact just one private entity that uses SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. In 2021, for example, Shift4 billionaire and private pilot Jared Isaacman flew to Earth orbit with three civilians on a mission known as Inspiration4. Isaacman next bought three more Crew Dragon missions for a three-mission private series known as the Polaris Program. The first of the trio, Polaris Dawn, may fly with Isaacman and three other people as soon as this year and feature the first commercial spacecraft.

Despite all of these private missions flown with SpaceX, Boeing officials have said they are struggling to find a business case for private astronaut missions as the market is so young and uncertain. Private astronaut missions are "just not at a level of maturity where I can write them into any kind of a business case and say that yeah, this is something that's going to kind of get us over the hump," John Shannon, vice president of Boeing Exploration Systems, told the Washington Post in October.

Aside from that, numerous technical problems with Starliner since 2019 forced Boeing to absorb $1.4 billion in unanticipated costs.

Starliner's issues delayed CFT by four years. The spacecraft's first uncrewed flight to the ISS in 2019 failed to reach its destination. Dozens of fixes later, a second test flight without astronauts safely docked with the ISS in 2022. CFT was delayed further in 2023 after critical issues with the parachutes, along with flammable P213 tape in the spacecraft, was discovered.

Steve Stich, program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told reporters during the same Thursday teleconference that he was impressed at Boeing's methodical fixes to the issues. 

"The entire NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance team and all the contractors have done a tremendous job working through a myriad of problems getting the certification done, and getting us to this point today," Stich said.

Wilmore and Williams, both former U.S. Navy test pilots, arrived yesterday at KSC to continue their quarantine and preparation for CFT's launch. They aim to do a thorough shakedown of the spacecraft and all systems, including considerable manual flying and testing emergency procedures such as powering up the solar panels, to help certify Starliner for six-month missions.

If CFT's flight goes to plan, the first operational mission (Starliner-1) will fly in early 2025 at the earliest, for a six-month tenure. That crew includes NASA's Mike Fincke, NASA's Scott Tingle and the Canadian Space Agency's Joshua Kutryk.