WATCH LIVE: ULA Boeing Starliner spacecraft ready for liftoff Saturday afternoon from the Cape Canaveral space station

Launch coverage can be seen on Space Coast Daily TV

WATCH LIVE: The ULA Boeing Starliner spacecraft is set to lift off Saturday afternoon from the Cape Canaveral space station.

The Starliner mission is scheduled to lift off at 12:25 p.m. on Saturday, June 1, from the Cape Canaveral space station.

BREVARD COUNTY • KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA – BREVARD COUNTY • CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is ready for a historic and long-awaited astronaut demonstration launch Saturday at 12:25 p.m. on a United Atlas V rocket Launch Alliance from Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Station.

You can watch the launch on Space Coast Daily TV.

“I am very proud of the teams who have worked very hard over the last two and a half weeks to prepare for launch,” said Steve Stich, NASA Commercial Crew Program manager. “We’re really ready to fly.”

Weather officers with the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 90 percent chance that weather conditions will be favorable for launch, with ground winds and cumulus rule being the primary weather concerns.

The ULA Atlas V integrated rocket and Starliner spacecraft stack deployed to the Cape Canaveral Space Station’s Space Launch Complex-41 pad in preparation for liftoff. Meanwhile, Wilmore and Williams remained in pre-flight quarantine inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building after returning to the Florida spaceport.

“We look forward to carrying out this mission. This is a test flight; we know we’re going to learn things,” said Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager, Commercial Crew Program, Boeing. “We are going to get better, and that improvement starts with the Starliner-1 mission and it will be even better than the mission we are about to do.”

The mission will send Wilmore and Williams to the orbiting laboratory for about a week before Starliner makes a parachute and airbag assisted landing in the southwestern United States.

This is the Starliner spacecraft’s first mission with a crew on board, which includes veteran duo NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will conduct a week-long test flight to the International Space Station . Wilmore and Williams are both retired U.S. Navy captains who spent time on the ISS.

Williams will be the pilot for the flight tests. Williams spent 322 days in space during two missions: Expedition 14/15 from 2006 to 2007 and Expedition 32/33 in 2012. The Massachusetts native also completed seven spacewalks, totaling 50 hours and 40 minutes.

Before beginning his career at NASA in 1998, Williams earned his bachelor’s degree in physical sciences from the United States Naval Academy, before earning his master’s degree in engineering management from the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. In total, she has accumulated more than 3,000 flight hours on more than 30 different aircraft.

The two NASA astronauts are set to make history as the first members aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft bound for the International Space Station.

As the final flight test of the Starliner, NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test will validate the transportation system, including the launch pad, rocket, spacecraft, operational capabilities in orbit, and return to Earth with astronauts on board.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will pilot Starliner, blasting off aboard the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at the Cape Canaveral space station in Florida, for a stay about a week aboard the space station. The Starliner and its crew will land under parachute and with an airbag-assisted landing in the western United States.

This is Boeing’s second flight to the International Space Station and the third flight test of the Starliner, following a second orbital flight test, the uncrewed mission also known as OFT-2, in May 2022. Boeing also completed the pad abort demonstration in November 2019.

The crew

Suni Williams: Williams will be the pilot for the flight tests. Williams spent 322 days in space during two missions: Expedition 14/15 from 2006 to 2007 and Expedition 32/33 in 2012. The Massachusetts native also completed seven spacewalks, totaling 50 hours and 40 minutes.

Before beginning his career at NASA in 1998, Williams earned his bachelor’s degree in physical science from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, before earning his master’s degree in engineering management from the Florida Institute of Melbourne Technology. In total, she has accumulated more than 3,000 flight hours on more than 30 different aircraft.

Butch Wilmore: Wilmore will be the mission commander. A veteran of two spaceflights, Wilmore has 178 days in space under his belt. In 2009, he served as a pilot aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis for mission STS-129. Additionally, Wilmore served as flight engineer for Expedition 41 until November 2014, when he assumed command of the station upon the arrival of the Expedition 42 crew. the following March.

Before being selected by NASA in 2000, the father of two earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, before earning another master’s degree in aeronautical systems at the University from Tennessee to Knoxville.

He also graduated from the United States Naval Test Pilot School, Patuxent River, Maryland, and completed four operational deployments during his tenure as a naval officer and fleet aviator.