CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Boeing, NASA and United Launch Alliance on Wednesday launched the oft-delayed first crewed flight for Starliner from Florida’s Space Coast.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson gave remarks during a post-launch news conference, playing off of one of the agency’s favorite phrases to describe hardships and successes alike, “Space is hard.”
“This is another milestone in this extraordinary history of NASA and I want to give my personal congratulations to the whole team that went through a lot of trial and tribulation, but they had perseverance, and that’s what we do at NASA, we don’t launch until it’s right,” Nelson said. “...What NASA does is hard. Spaceflight is hard, but it’s worth doing. So, my congratulations to the team,” Nelson said.
NASA confirmed over the weekend that the launch was scheduled for 10:52 a.m. from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
According to a news release, the ground power supply — which scrubbed Saturday’s launch attempt — was fixed overnight and into Sunday.
“The chassis containing the faulty ground power unit was replaced and ULA confirmed all hardware is performing normally,” the release read.
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NASA officials announced on Monday that the Atlas V rocket being used in the Starliner launch was “healthy” and ready for use.
The launch brought people from all across the country and around the world to the Space Coast.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I think,” said Jamie Brooke, who was visiting from England. “It’s just an amazing experience for them to go through and to get them to the space station. I just think for us to see that and witness that as a family. We’ve come all this way and it’s happened. It’s absolutely fantastic.”
“I think it’s awesome,” said Nathan Tran, visiting from Kansas. “It’s my first time seeing a rocket launch live.”
.@NASA’s @BoeingSpace Crew Flight Test mission teams are preparing to support a launch at 10:52am ET June 5.
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) June 2, 2024
The @ulalaunch team identified an issue with a single ground power supply that encountered issues during the countdown and scrubbed the June 1 launch attempt.
On Sunday,… pic.twitter.com/lyxi4RugUh
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams remained in quarantine at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center leading up to the launch.
Starliner has been plagued with issues. Its initial unpiloted test flight in 2019 was derailed by software problems and communications glitches. A second uncrewed test flight was generally successful, but more problems were discovered after its return to Earth, CBS reported.
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