[vreihen16]

Just watched the demo flight launch video stream of the new Boeing Starliner, on an unmanned demo flight to the International Space Station (ISS) to show that it is ready to carry people for the next launch.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) provided the Atlas booster and Centaur second stage, and both of them performed nominally according to the video stream. They left Starliner in an elliptical orbit as planned, handing off to Boeing to use Starliner's thrusters to trim things up to ultimately rendezvous with the ISS.

Things got busy in the Starliner control room as this was going on, with papers being referenced instead of the computer screens in front of everyone. They turned Starliner towards the sun so that the solar arrays could charge the batteries, and announced that they had a non-nominal orbit insertion and were working the options up until the (scheduled?) end of the video stream.

If I was a betting person who knows that meeting up with the ISS in orbit is like threading a needle, I would put some money on them bringing the capsule back down without docking. I would also sell Boeing before the market opens, 'cuz it could get ugly if I'm right.....