CAPE CANAVERAL — Boeing Co successfully launched its new astronaut capsule on Friday on an unmanned debut journey to the International Space Station, a milestone test for the U.S. aerospace firm that is vying with SpaceX to revive NASA’s human spaceflight capabilities. Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, a cone-shaped pod with seven astronaut seats, blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral at 6:36 a.m. atop an Atlas V rocket from Boeing-Lockheed Martin Corp’s United Launch Alliance. Minutes after liftoff, Starliner detached from the main rocket booster, aiming for a rendezvous some 409 kilometres into space on Saturday morning with the International Space Station. The program, primarily meant to end America’s reliance on Russia’s space program for rides to the space station, had initially expected its first crewed flights on Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule in late 2017. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule carried out its unmanned test flight to the space station in March.

Source: National Post December 20, 2019 14:37 UTC