The launch of the Boeing Starliner marks the beginning of a long-awaited mission with a NASA crew

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Two NASA astronauts arrived in the final hours for a highly anticipated launch attempt aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule, the first crewed mission for the brand new spacecraft.

Starliner – designed by the aerospace giant to compete with SpaceX’s prolific Crew Dragon capsule – will lift off for its inaugural crewed test flight from Space Force Station Cape Canaveral in Florida on Monday at 10:34 pm ET.

NASA will webcast. The event on its channels starts Monday at 6:30 PM ET. CNN will stream live updates from the mission online shortly before launch.

Weather conditions or technical issues can always cause a rocket launch to go all the way until the countdown clock reaches zero, but tonight’s forecast is as good as it gets. Weather officials said there is only a 5% chance that clouds, wind or storms will interrupt tonight’s start.

The mission, called the Crew Flight Test, could be the last major milestone before NASA deems Boeing’s spacecraft ready for routine operations as part of the federal agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The Starliner vehicle will join SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in NASA’s effort to collaborate with private sector partners, expanding U.S. capabilities for transporting astronauts to the International Space Station.

The mission crew includes veteran astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore, both of whom went into space on two previous flights aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle and Russian Soyuz missions.

“They control a lot of systems: life support, manual controls,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a news conference Friday. “That’s why we put test pilots on board – and of course Butch and Sonny’s resumes have been expanded.”

This will be only the sixth first flight of a manned spacecraft in U.S. history, Nelson noted: “It started with Mercury, then Gemini, then Apollo, then the Space Shuttle, then Dragon (SpaceX) – and now with Starliner.”

Williams would also become the first woman ever to join such a mission.

If all goes according to plan, the crew will board a Starliner capsule and take off Monday evening on an Atlas V rocket. The spacecraft – carrying the astronauts – will separate from the rocket after reaching orbit and start using its own engines. The Starliner vehicle will then spend more than 24 hours gradually making its way to the space station, where it is expected to dock at 12:46 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Williams and Willmore are expected to spend about a week aboard the orbiting laboratory, joining the spacecraft’s Seven astronauts and astronauts already on board, while the Starliner is still docked outside.

The two will then return home aboard the same Starliner capsule, which is expected to land by parachute at one of several designated locations in the southwestern United States.

There is a lot involved in a smooth test drive. NASA waited half a decade before Starliner could begin crewed launches, and Starliner’s development has seen years of delays, setbacks and errors. More broadly, Boeing as a company has been plagued for years by scandals in its aircraft division that have tarnished the long-standing aerospace giant’s brand.

“We went through a very rigorous process to get here,” Mark Nappi, vice president and Starliner program manager at Boeing, said Friday during a news conference about the development process. “The truth is that my confidence comes from going through this process.”

If the crew’s test flight is successful, Boeing can begin routine flights to the space station on behalf of NASA.

The US space agency chose Boeing in 2014 to develop the Starliner – along with SpaceX and its Crew Dragon capsule – in the hope that commercial companies could create complementary new means of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station after the Space Shuttle program retired in 2014. 2011.

SpaceX eventually overtook Boeing on the launch pad and conducted crewed flight tests of its Crew Dragon capsule in May 2020. SpaceX traded most of the Of NASA’s crew transportation needs since then.