Veteran astronaut Sunita Williams is preparing for a historic third journey into space aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.
The spacecraft will lift off on its maiden flight at 8:22 pm IST from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The last two attempts were scrubbed due to technical glitches.
If successful, the 58-year-old Williams will become the first woman to fly on the maiden crewed mission of a new orbital spacecraft.
Williams, who has logged 322 days in space across two previous missions, will be joined by Nasa astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore for the crucial test flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
The mission aims to certify Boeing's Starliner as the second private spacecraft, after SpaceX's Crew Dragon, capable of transporting astronauts to and from the orbiting laboratory.
The flight has already faced multiple delays due to technical issues, including a helium leak in Starliner's service module that scrubbed an earlier May 6 launch attempt just minutes before liftoff. On June 1, the launch was scribbed again, just four minutes before scheduled lift-off.
Nasa and Boeing teams have been working to assess the spacecraft's performance and redundancy systems following the helium leak. A successful uncrewed Orbital Flight Test was conducted in May 2022, but this will be Starliner's first crewed mission to dock with the ISS.
For Williams, who was born to an Indian-American father and Slovenian-American mother, the flight represents another milestone in her trailblazing career.
She previously set a world record for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most spacewalk time (50 hours, 40 minutes) during her two expeditions aboard the ISS in 2006-2007 and 2012.
If all goes according to plan, the Starliner capsule will autonomously rendezvous and dock with the space station around 26 hours after launch. Williams and Wilmore will then spend about a week aboard the orbiting laboratory before returning to Earth in the first landing of a crewed US spacecraft on land.
As Williams and Wilmore continue final preparations, all eyes will be on the highly anticipated Starliner mission – a pivotal step in Nasa's Commercial Crew Program.
