Boeing Starliner Successfully Docks at International Space Station for 1st Time – The Quint

Boeing’s passenger spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, on Saturday, 21 May, successfully docked itself to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time, paving the way for its future flights to potentially bring humans to the orbiting laboratory.

This was the Starliners’ third attempt, on a mission designed to test the end-to-end capabilities of the crew-capable system as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme.

The first was in December 2019, which failed due to a series of software glitches. In the second attempt last August, Boeing halted the flight just hours before liftoff, after discovering some propellant valves that weren’t working properly.

“Through the combined work of NASA and Starliner teams, the spacecraft connected to the Boeing-built International Docking Adapter at (5:58 am India time),” Boeing Space said in a tweet.

NASA tweeted, “The Boeing Space Starliner that just arrived at the International Space Station on a test flight is carrying over 500 lbs (227 kg) of cargo and crew supplies.”