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After numerous delays and years of setbacks, Boeing (NYSE:BA) is set to launch its Starliner spacecraft on Saturday, a mission more than a decade in the making.
The liftoff atop the Atlas 5 rocket, built by Boeing’s (BA) and Lockheed Martin’s (LMT) joint venture, United Launch Alliance (ULA), is expected to take place at 12:25 p.m. EDT (1625 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The voyage, named Crew Flight Test, will ferry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the International Space Station in a weeklong journey.
The project is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which in 2014 brought Boeing (BA) and SpaceX (SPACE) as the first private partners to send astronauts to the ISS.
Elon Musk’s space exploration company completed its first crewed mission, Demo-2, in 2020. However, numerous development hangups and test flight delays have pushed back Boeing’s (BA) plans to realize the Starliner mission.
According to the most recent updates from ULA, weather conditions remain 90% favorable for the launch. NASA will start a live stream of the event on its website at 8:15 a.m. EDT.
