Boeing’s Starliner capsule docks with International Space Station

Boeing’s new Starliner crew capsule has docked for the first time with the International Space Station (ISS), completing a major objective in a high stakes do-over test flight into orbit without astronauts aboard.

The rendezvous of the gumdrop-shaped CST-100 Starliner with the orbital research outpost, currently home to a seven-member crew, occurred in the early hours yesterday, nearly 26 hours after the capsule was launched from the Cape Canaveral US Space Force Station in Florida.

Starliner lifted off on Friday atop an Atlas V rocket furnished by the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Launch Alliance and reached its intended preliminary orbit 31 minutes later despite the failure of two onboard thrusters.

Boeing said the two defective thrusters posed no risk to the rest of the spaceflight, which comes after more than two years of delays and costly engineering setbacks in a programme designed to give Nasa another vehicle for sending its astronauts to and from orbit.