Starliner is powered up and activated for flight.
On Sunday, May 5, engineers took their positions on console in Boeing’s Mission Control Center (BMCC) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to power up and activate the Starliner spacecraft ahead of the Crew Flight Test (CFT).
The spacecraft will remain powered on from now until it enters quiescent mode at the International Space Station. Throughout that time, Boeing engineers will work in shifts to continuously monitor the spacecraft and its systems. Commanding of the vehicle will come from the BMCC team until handover to Starliner mission controllers in Houston at about L-3 hours, 55 minutes on launch day.
Meanwhile, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) team completed loading the Atlas V first stage with 25,000 gallons of storable RP-1 fuel, a highly refined kerosene.
Both the Starliner and Atlas V, stacked at the launch pad at Space Launch Complex-41, are healthy ahead of liftoff planned for Monday, May 6, at 10:34 p.m. ET.