spaceflightnow.com• Jul 19, 2021• 1 min read
Boeing crew capsule mounted on Atlas 5 rocket for unpiloted test flightBoeing second Starliner crew ferry spacecraft rolled out of its factory early Saturday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for mounting on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket set for liftoff July 30 on a redo of a problem-plagued unpiloted test flight in 2019. The human-rated spaceship, which has yet to be cleared to fly astronauts, emerged from Boeing’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility near NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building before dawn Saturday, riding a spacecraft transporter for the several-mile journey to ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility at the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. ULA’s ground crew attached a four-point lifting sling for the overhead crane in the VIF to hoist the Starliner spacecraft atop the Atlas 5 rocket, which was already stacked on a mobile launch platform inside the vertical hangar. Teams completed work to attach the spacecraft to the Atlas 5 rocket over the weekend, setting the stage for an integrated systems test, a “tip-to-tail”
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