NASA and Boeing will host a mission overview media teleconference at 11 a.m. EST Friday, Feb. 17, to provide a status update on the first astronaut flight test of the company’s CST-100 Starliner to the International Space Station. Launch is targeted for no earlier than April to the microgravity laboratory.
Audio of the teleconference will livestream on NASA’s website.
Leadership will share mission progress and discuss upcoming milestones ahead of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) – the final flight test prior to regular crewed missions to the space station on the next-generation system.
The briefing participants are:
- Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
- Jeff Arend, manager, Systems Engineering and Integration Office, NASA’s International Space Station Program
- Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, CST-100 Starliner, Boeing
To participate in the call, media must RSVP no later than one hour prior to the start of the event to: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.
For CFT, the Starliner spacecraft will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, returning approximately eight days later in White Sands, New Mexico. The flight will carry two NASA astronaut test pilots, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, on the demonstration flight to prove the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system.
Following a successful test flight with astronauts, NASA will begin the final process of certifying the Starliner spacecraft and systems for regular crew rotation flights to the space station.