spacetoday.net: Boeing plans December orbital test flight of Starliner

Posted: Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 8:08 PM ET (0008 GMT)
Boeing CST-100 illustration

Boeing plans to launch an uncrewed test of its commercial crew vehicle in mid-December. A company executive said Wednesday the Orbital Flight Test of its CST-100 Starliner is scheduled for Dec. 17 on an Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral. The spacecraft that will fly that mission to the International Space Station is in the final stages of assembly and testing. Boeing will perform a pad abort test using another Starliner vehicle Nov. 4 from White Sands, New Mexico, using the spacecraft's abort motor to leap off a pad for a 90-second flight. SpaceX will carry out its own in-flight abort test of its Crew Dragon vehicle, likely to take place in late November or early December. Neither company has set a date for a crewed test flight of their spacecraft.