*Teams from NASA and Boeing gathered at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 11 EDT for a flight readiness review * to prepare Boeing for the unmanned orbital flight test-2 (oft-2) planned by the agency's commercial crew.
The review is an in-depth assessment of the flight readiness, mission operations, support functions and the readiness of the space station plan of the Boeing CST-100 starliner system to support the flight of inorganic crew to the international space station. Kathryn Lueders, deputy director of space operations at NASA headquarters, chaired the meeting. The senior Boeing official participating in the review was Mark Nappi, vice president and project manager of Boeing's commercial crew program. At the end of the meeting, all members of the review committee will vote.
Starliner is scheduled to be launched by the Atlas V rocket of the joint launch alliance from the space launch complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force base, Florida at 6:54 p.m. EST on May 19, and will merge and dock with the laboratory in orbit. The flight test will provide NASA with valuable data to certify Boeing's crew transportation system and astronauts' regular flights to and from the space station.