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Showing posts with the label test pilots

Countdown to Innovation: NASA Astronauts Prep for Historic Starliner Launch

Veteran Pilots Bring Decades of Experience to Boeing's First Crewed Spaceflight \ On the verge of a significant milestone in commercial space travel, NASA astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni Williams are poised to helm the first-ever crewed launch of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. Scheduled for liftoff on May 6 at 10:34 p.m. EDT, this mission marks a pivotal moment in both their careers and the broader aerospace industry. The astronauts' backgrounds as test pilots in the U.S. Navy are instrumental to their current roles in this mission. Their extensive experience—totaling over 11,000 flight hours—provides them with the unique expertise required to assess and manage the complex systems of the Starliner spacecraft during its initial crewed test. This expertise is particularly crucial given the spacecraft's mixed history of successes and setbacks, including a failed uncrewed test in 2019 due to software issues, followed by a successful redo in 2022. The for