Starliner: Nasa to fly new craft to space station

Two Nasa astronauts are due to head for the International Space Station aboard a new spacecraft. Boeing's Starliner will blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, in its first crewed test flight. The mission has been delayed for several years because of setbacks in the spacecraft's development. If it is successful, it will become the second private firm able to provide crew transport to and from the ISS, alongside Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Nasa no longer wants to own and operate such vehicles, preferring now to buy the service from the commercial sector. The scheduled lift-off is set for 22:34 local time on Monday (03:34 BST Tuesday). But the launch is also a moment of jeopardy for Boeing. Its airline business is under pressure because of a series of accidents. And the firm's space sector is also under scrutiny following difficulties in developing Starliner itself.

"It's a really big day for Boeing", commented Dr Simeon Barber, a space scientist at the Open University. "The company has been working on the spacecraft for so long, they have had a few problems with the test flights and there's a lot riding on this".Nasa and Boeing would not have given the go ahead for astronauts to fly the mission unless they were certain all the glitches had been sorted out. And the launch will be aborted if there is any sign of problems with the spacecraft.

Nasa/Boeing Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch WilmoreNasa/Boeing. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are among Nasa's most experienced astronauts. At a pre-flight news conference, a reporter put it to the Navy-trained astronauts that the setbacks must make their flight "scary" for friends and family. Barry "Butch" Wilmore said it would be wrong to describe the various technical issues as "setbacks".

"We'd call them steps forward. We find an issue and rectify that and we have articulated that to our families so that they understand that," he added. And Sunita "Suni" Williams, who will pilot the spacecraft, commented: "We are all here because we are all ready. Our friends and family have heard about it and we've talked about it and they are happy and proud that we are part of the process to fix it all."