NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Mission Overview

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will support NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test mission to the International Space Station. The duo will launch aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission serves as the final flight test for the Starliner spacecraft and will be its first mission with crew. The mission will also validate the transportation system, including the launch pad, rocket, spacecraft, in-orbit operational capabilities, and return to Earth with astronauts aboard. Following launch, Wilmore and Williams will spend about a week aboard the space station and then return to Earth, landing in the western United States. Wilmore is the commander for the mission. A veteran of two spaceflights, Wilmore has spent 178 days in space. In 2009, he served as a pilot aboard space shuttle Atlantis for STS-129. He served as a flight engineer for Expedition 41 until November 2014, when he assumed command of the station upon arrival of the Expedition 42 crew. He returned to Earth the following March. Wilmore was selected by NASA in 2000 to become an astronaut. He is a graduate of the United States Test Pilot School and holds a both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville. He is a retired captain in the U.S. Navy. Williams is the pilot for the mission. She has spent 322 days in space across two missions: Expedition 14/15 in 2006 through 2007, and Expedition 32/33 in 2012. The Massachusetts native has conducted seven spacewalks, totaling 50 hours and 40 minutes. Williams was selected by NASA in 1998 to become an astronaut. She is a retired captain in the U.S. Navy. She has a bachelor’s degree in Physical Science from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, and a master’s degree in Engineering Management from the Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne.

What is said in the film

The mission of the Commercial Crew program is to provide transportation for astronauts to the International Space Station. Multiple providers provide you redundancy. Redundancy is important, as we know, in our systems. We have redundant systems. But actually, more importantly, it's providing the aerospace workforce the opportunity to test out new ideas, new technologies and work them into spacecraft.

Butch and I are the first two to fly the Starliner. So this flight will be a crewed flight test. So there will only be two on board. We're going to fly it up to the space station dock it and test it all out and then come back home. Everything’s new.

The procedures are new. We have procedures now that we didn't have a year ago because we've learned as the process has gone forward. We've had two test flights, uncrewed previously, but this will be the first time we're putting people on it. We’re test pilots. And so we're going to be testing the spacecraft in all aspects of the flight from launch, on orbit, all the way to entry and landing.

We're testing out the environmental controls system. We're testing out the manual flying of the spacecraft. Then while we're docked to the space station, we have a bunch of tasks to make sure that the spacecraft can act as a lifeboat. Just in case anything bad goes on on the International Space Station. The crew on board can come to the Starliner and make sure that they're okay.

This has a mode where, we call it backup mode, which is your get home mode, if you will, we can without any communication at all we can still affect a return to Earth, do a deorbit burn and hit the the point where we're trying to land, even without our computers. You know that old mantra, “failure is not an option” because a very dynamic thing we do flying in space and it's not very forgiving. And we know that. And that's why we have these multiple systems and multiple redundant capabilities. because human life is special and we want to preserve it at all costs.

I think exploration is just in the human heart. Butch, he describes himself as the first thing he said as a kid was “why? ” And I think that's in all of us. Maybe we don't verbalize it, but we all ask “why? ” And that's what exploration is.

It's that next step of “why? ” So why not go back to the moon? Why not try to live on the moon? It seems like a natural stepping stone, to the next thing, Mars, which just calls us like, why is that planet there? What is the future of that planet?

What is the future of our planet? And to be able to take these next steps in exploration, we’re going to start answering those questions. We stand on the pinnacle. This is kind of where all everything integration, everything comes together, which is where Suni and I sit. And this is just a part of the ongoing process of growing and expounding our knowledge and our understanding of all things for the benefit of mankind.

I am Suni Williams, and I am ready to fly NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test. I'm Butch Wilmore, and I am ready to fly NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test.

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