[NASA HQ News] NASA to Host a Pair of Briefings for Starliner Crew Flight

(AGENPARL) – Rome, 16 April 2024

(AGENPARL) – Tue 16 Apr 2024 NASA to Host a Pair of Briefings for Starliner Crew Flight
APR 16, 2024
MEDIA ADVISORY M24-052
NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams prepare for their mission in the company’s Starliner spacecraft simulator at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Credits: NASA/Robert Markowitz
NASA will host two media opportunities on Thursday, April 25, in preparation for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test to the International Space Station. The mission is targeting launch at 10:34 pm EDT on Monday, May 6, from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will lift off aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and dock at the orbiting laboratory, where they will stay for about a week.
As part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, the mission is the first crewed flight for the Starliner spacecraft. The mission will test the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system, including launch, docking, and return to Earth in the western United States. Following a successful crewed flight test, NASA will begin the final process of certifying Starliner and systems for crewed missions to the space station.
NASA’s coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
Thursday, April 25
1 pm: Crew arrival media event at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the following participants:
* Janet Petro, director, NASA Kennedy
* Dana Hutcherson, deputy program manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
* NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore
* NASA astronaut Suni Williams
6 pm: Flight Test Readiness Review media teleconference (no less than one hour following completion of the readiness review), with the following participants:
* Jim Free, NASA associate administrator
* Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
* Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
* Dana Weigel, manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
* Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Boeing Commercial Crew Program
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program has delivered on its goal of safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a partnership with American private industry. This partnership is changing the arc of human spaceflight history by opening access to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station to more people, more science, and more commercial opportunities. The space station remains the springboard to NASA’s next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars.
For NASA’s launch blog and more information about the mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
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