Watch the Starliner spacecraft feature in its own aurora video - Beritaja

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Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner launched successfully atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket connected June 5, safely delivering NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to The International Space Station (ISS) The pursuing day.

The Starliner, connected its first crewed formation to orbit, was primitively scheduled for a enactment lasting conscionable complete a week. But in caller days, NASA announced The spacecraft would enactment astatine The ISS until June 22 to finalize departure readying and operations, and besides to transportation retired motor tests to measure The capacity of thrusters, immoderate of which played up during The Starliner’s last attack to The ISS connected June 6.

ISS astronaut Matthew Dominick precocious shared immoderate cool footage showing The Starliner pinch a melodramatic aurora backdrop. The time-lapse (below) was changeable from wrong SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which docked pinch The ISS in March. As Dominick points out, you Can moreover drawback glimpses of Williams and Wilmore wrong The Starliner, its interior lit up by their flashlights.

Timelapse video of aurora streaming down Starliner taken from a Dragon model pinch Butch and Suni in The model of Starliner. Their flashlights ray up The cabin.

0.5 2nd interval, f 1.4, 6400 ISO, 1/4 2nd exposure, 24mm lens. pic.twitter.com/gZuxYZu0Af

— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) June 16, 2024

In different changeable besides captured by Dominick we Can spot The aurora seemingly emanating from The spacecraft itself. “Timing was awesome for The aurora to statement up nicely pinch Starliner’s work module thrusters,” Dominick commented.

We person been looking astatine aurora retired The cupola windows a batch lately. Starliner was doing immoderate testing coming truthful we decided to cheque it retired from The Dragon windows. Timing was awesome for The aurora to statement up nicely pinch Starliner’s work module thrusters. pic.twitter.com/mlsbLxFaJL

— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) June 15, 2024

When The Starliner has been afloat certified — perchance aft this existent trial formation — NASA will person different conveyance that it Can usage to transportation astronauts and cargo to The abstraction station, alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which has been flying unit to orbit since 2020.

“We are continuing to understand The capabilities of Starliner to hole for The semipermanent extremity of having it execute a six-month docked ngo astatine The abstraction station,” Steve Stich, head of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a caller post connected The agency’s website, adding that The Willliams and Wilmore will transportation retired further hatch operations to amended understand its handling, repetition immoderate ‘safe haven’ testing in which astronauts retreat to their spacecraft in an emergency situation, and measure piloting utilizing The spacecraft’s guardant window.