A lot of space agencies have been pretty busy as of late and NASA had just updated its schedule to show what they have more in store for us. The upcoming space flights to the International Space Station (ISS) listed are for 2023 through 2024.
NASA's Upcoming Crewed Missions
Space flights like many things, need to be coordinated, which is exactly what NASA, Boeing, and SpaceX did to determine which crewed mission will be flying off to the International Space Station. The one we'll be hearing about soon is the Crew Flight Test of Starliner.
Starliner, which is Boeing's vehicle, is set to fly out on July 21st, 2023. It will be the first crewed flight of the Starliner, according to Space, and it will be manned by Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Suni William as they fly to the ISS.
The mission is meant to certify the spacecraft and make sure that they are operational for the crewed flight that will take place in the summer of 2024. Astronauts Wilmore and Williams will participate in an eight-day mission and return by landing on White Sands in New Mexico.
If all goes well, the Boeing Starliner-1 will conduct a crew rotation mission by the summer of 2024. NASA astronaut Scott Tingle will be the commander, while Mike Fincke serve as the pilot. There are two more specialists that haven't been announced.
Although there's already a scheduled timetable announced, NASA is no stranger to delays. There are many factors that have to go well such as a successful Crew Flight Test, approvals of postflight data and final certification products, certification reviews, and more.
NASA's SpaceX crew will perform its seventh rotational mission to the ISS around mid-August of 2023. The mission will be bringing NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and the European Space Agency's Andreas Mogensen.
Moghbeli and Mogensen will serve as the mission commander and pilot, respectively, while the final two mission specialists will be announced in the coming months. The spacecraft is currently in Cape Canaveral in SpaceX's refurbishing facility.
The eighth rotational mission of NASA's SpaceX Crew will take palace in February 2024. It will have a crew of four and they will board a SpaceX Dragon that will be boosted by the Falcon 9 rocket on the way to the ISS, as mentioned by NASA.
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Starliner's Preparation
The Crew Flight Test is meant to test the capabilities of the Starliner system with a crew, as well as the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. It is to determine the success of the mission's prelaunch, docking, undocking, landing, and recovery.
Around 90% of the flight certification products have already been completed. What remains is testing the spacecraft's subsystems and backup manual flight mode should emergencies arise when the astronauts are in space.
The Starliner spacecraft itself is already complete. The team working on it is securing the final interior closeouts and finishing up integrated testing. The rocket that will be used, Atlas V, has also completed its rocket readiness status.
