ORBITAL FLIGHT TEST (OFT) OF BOEING’S COMMERCIAL CREW STARLINER SPACECRAFT, Dec 20, 2019, CCAFS, FL, 6:36 am ET

Update, December 12: Boeing and NASA confirmed the December 20 launch date and time.  NASA TV launch coverage begins at 5:30 am ET. A post-launch press conference with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is at 9:00 am ET followed by one with the launch team at 9:30 am ET. If launch takes place as planned, Starliner will dock at ISS on December 21 at  8:19 am ET and return a landing at White Sands, New Mexico on December 28 at 5:47 am ET (3:37 am local time).

Update, December 10:  The time for the test on December 20 is 6:36 am ET.

Update, December 4:  ULA has delayed the launch by another day, to December 20.  In an email, it explained the delay this way.

Update December 3:   Boeing has delayed the launch for two days, to December 19 at 6:59 am ET.

We worked closely with @ulalaunch to remedy an #AtlasV purge air supply issue ahead of the #Starliner launch, now targeted for Dec. 19, 6:59 a.m. ET. pic.twitter.com/Ohk5Nk447g

— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) December 3, 2019

Original Entry: Boeing will conduct an uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) on December 17, 2019. Boeing calls it the Orbital Flight Test (OFT). Launch is scheduled for 7:47 am ET.

A test with a crew, the Crew Flight Test (CFT), will take place in the future.  The date has not been determined.

No one will be aboard this flight of Starliner, which is being developed as part of NASA’s commercial crew program, a public-private partnership between NASA and industry to take astronauts to and from ISS.  SpaceX is also building a commercial crew system, Crew Dragon,  It conducted its uncrewed flight test in March 2019.  The date for its crewed test flight also has not been announced.

Starliner will be launched by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), FL, adjacent to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.  Details are TBA.

It will dock with the ISS for several days and then to land in the western United States.  Starliner is designed to land on land, like Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, not in the ocean like Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.  It will use parachutes and airbags to make a soft landing at one of four sites:  White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico; Willcox, Arizona; Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; or Edwards Air Force Base, California.