NASA timelapse shows a Starliner capsule stacked on the rocket

Just one week apart from the launch of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner from the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a crucial test flight to the International Space Station (ISS).

In an attempt to make noise before the launch and spread information about the mission on May 19, Boeing shared a 113-second delayed video (below) showing the spacecraft in what seems to be the easiest trip it will ever have to make.

Footage shows the Starliner being transported from a commercial crew and cargo facility at the Kennedy Space Center to a vertical integration facility operated by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), whose Atlas V rocket will launch the Starliner into orbit next week.

We’ve accelerated this time interval so you can see #StarlinerDeploy and arrange in less than 2 minutes.

Watch from Starliner’s perspective as he heads from our factory to @ulalaunch Vertical integration mechanism.

Join us to launch the Orbital Flight Test-2 on May 19th. pic.twitter.com/g2cyviU4Oa

– Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) May 10, 2022

For people who want to see more of the spacecraft’s journey to the Atlas V rocket, Boeing also shared an unedited version of the delay, which lasted just over nine minutes.

The unmanned mission for next week is extremely important for Boeing, as it was followed by a failed flight in December 2019, as well as a second mission last August, when technical problems meant that Starliner could not even get off the launch pad.

Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 is designed to demonstrate that the aerospace giant has solved all its problems and is now able to fly safely to and from the space station.

Starliner is expected to land on the ISS on May 20, about 24 hours after the launch. It will be loaded with more than 500 pounds of NASA cargo and supplies for the crew. The spacecraft will remain on the ISS for between 5 and 10 days before returning to Earth for a parachute landing in New Mexico, carrying about 600 pounds of cargo.

If the mission goes according to plan, it will give NASA another opportunity, along with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, to transport astronauts and cargo to orbital posts. For now, this means the ISS, but in the coming years, after the decommissioning of the ISS, other satellites inhabiting the Earth are expected to enter service.

After years of development and testing, SpaceX first deployed its Dragon spacecraft for unmanned cargo missions to the space station in 2012. Based on its experience with Dragon, SpaceX built the Dragon Crew for astronaut flights, the first of which held in 2020. Here is an overview of this historic mission in photos.

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