All eyes are on the weather as Boeing looks to launch Starliner on Tuesday

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Weather concerns continue as NASA and Boeing look to launch their Starliner capsule on a vital unmanned test flight to the International Space Station on Tuesday (August 3).

The launch is targeted at 1:20 p.m. EDT (1720 GMT), and current weather patterns favor afternoon showers and thunderstorms along Florida’s east coast, according to the 45th Weather Squadron, which monitors conditions for launches from the Kennedy Space Center and Cape. Canaveral Space Station. There is a 40% chance that the weather will allow for a launch on Tuesday, according to current Bureau forecasts, which indicates the Starliner may be able to blast off the pillow before the turbulent weather sets in.

“Larger coverage of convection is expected to be delayed until after the launch window,” squadron officials wrote in a statement published Saturday (July 31). “However, a weather-related violation is possible due to scattered showers and thunderstorms in the area, especially towards the end of the count.”

RELATED: Boeing Starliner Orbital Test Flight 2: Live Updates With Pictures: Boeing’s Starliner Orbital Test Flight 2 mission to the International Space Station

In particular, the office monitors cumulus cloud formation, surface electric fields, and potential illumination hazards.

The same difficult weather conditions worrying launch personnel prompted the mission team to return the Starliner and Atlas V rockets to the interior of the launch pad, arriving Thursday (July 29) in preparation for launch on Friday (July 30). . Although weather conditions were also a concern on this launch date, the mission was delayed after the International Space Station spent about 45 minutes Thursday off-orbiting when a software glitch caused thrusters to launch on a newly arrived Russian science unit.

If the Starliner doesn’t run on Tuesday, the next opportunity will be on Wednesday (August 4). When the capsule lifts off, the launch will begin a full-day journey to the International Space Station, where you’ll spend less than a week before returning to Earth for a landing in the western United States.

The launch, called the Orbital Flight Test-2 or OFT-2, marks a significant milestone for Boeing’s Starliner system, which first attempted an uncrewed test flight to the space station in December 2019. However, a series of errors meant the capsule was unable to make So. It made it to the orbiting laboratory and returned to Earth without accomplishing its primary mission: to demonstrate that the system is ready to transport astronauts.

Nineteen months later, after processing 80 recommendations from NASA and Boeing investigations into the failed flight, Starliner is ready to attempt another flight. The successful mission will pave the way for three NASA astronauts to launch later this year in a manned flight test, which in turn will allow Boeing to begin regularly flying astronauts into orbit, as rival SpaceX has already begun with the Crew Dragon capsule.

Email Megan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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