Boeing finished loading hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide maneuvering propellants over the weekend into the company’s second space-rated Starliner capsule at the Kennedy Space Center, days after stacking of its Atlas 5 launcher began a few miles away at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The capsule is scheduled to launch July 30 at 2:53 p.m. EDT (1853 GMT) on a test flight to the space station. If all goes according to plan, it will clear the way for Boeing to carry astronauts to the station, possibly before the end of this year.
That will be welcome news to NASA, which has funded the Starliner spacecraft’s development through its a commercial crew program in a cost-sharing arrangement with Boeing. NASA’s commercial crew contracts with Boeing since 2010 are valued at more than $5 billion.
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