The Boeing CST-100 Starliner manned spacecraft without a crew on board docked with the ISS for the first time. During the previous flight in 2019, the ship failed to reach the station due to incorrect operation of the engines. Starliner will spend four days at the station.
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner is a new American manned spacecraft. Like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, the Starliner was developed by order of NASA and is designed to transport astronauts to the station without the use of Russian “Unions”. It can accommodate seven crew members. The ship is built according to a partially reusable scheme.
If the Starliner returns safely to Earth, and the problem with the engines can be quickly fixed, then the ship can fly for the first time with people on board already this year — a preliminary test flight with astronauts is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022.
