mentioned back in may but now we re go for launch. so what can we expect in about 22 minutes? hopefully, this spacecraft is going to launch from the cape canaveral cape canaveral cape, canaveral space force station up into orbit they re going to spend about eight days up at the international space station. and the reason this is so important, allison, is because of the fact that nasa wants redundancy. they are pretty have the spacex crew dragon capsule, which can take nasa astronauts to the iss. they want a backup alternative that s what boeing s starliner is. an allison same. you should ask charlie bolden about this because he was the nasa administrator when sonny williams was initially named to the starliner crew back in 25th 15. that s how long she has been waiting to fly today. oh, that s that s great context. okay. charles, so tell us how sunny williams and her fellow astronaut are preparing
about allowing more nasa mr. knots to fly. it s about reducing the russians dependency reducing us dependency on russian soyuz rockets. and it really would to usher in a new kind of golden era of space travel, so to speak, because it s the nasa administrator, the current nasa administrator, bill nelson has been saying, allison this is what this, if they can get boeing starliner off the ground. this is the moment that nasa has been waiting a decade four to have not one but two spacecrafts that can do the exact same thing. three, nasa, up to focus on bigger picture stuff like the artemis missions and returning nasa astronauts to the moon for the first time since the apollo program. now really good information for us to have kristen and charles stick around if you would, because we re getting information in very quickly and we re going to take a very quick break because this historic starliner launch has now officially been scrubbed
that s butch wilmore and sunny williams will be staying grounded today so they were just under four minutes from launch, three minutes and 50 seconds to be exact when the automated system caused a hold and we still don t know exactly why all sorts of systems were stable and set to launch, but something has scrubbed this takeoff for today. so back with me or space and defense correspondent kristin fisher at the kennedy space center and former nasa administrator, charles bolden, charles disappointing. i m sure for you as well as for the astronauts as well as all the spectators. any idea of why this would happen no. i don t and the kristinn has said earlier, the hole was put on by the ground launch sequencer when when we re going through a count down, there is a point in the shuttle again, i ll relate everything to
have to do in the cockpit. and they ll go through getting there. they ll probably, in fact, it looks like they ve actually opened their advisers already so they re, they re getting good fresh air and everything and they re going through the board checklist, if you will, that they have on board yeah. i mean, we re looking live at them right now. their faces are impassive. however, as you say, we see their advisors up and they took off their seat belts you know, sort of sign that they re not taking off right now so kristen, i m gonna go back to you because this is not good news for boeing. boeing was you know, i don t know if it s been scrubbed two times before or three times before, but boeing is trying to prove itself in that s arena now yeah. i mean, boeing desperately needs a win here, right? i mean, they were first awarded this contract of of line acids personal crew missions, about a decade ago. and since then, everybody thought that boeing
collaborate with private industry partners. if successful, suni williams would become the first woman aboard any crewed test flight like this years of work has gone into this moment and it has not been without setbacks, as i ve mentioned. so let s bring in space and defense correspondent kristin fisher. she is live it kennedy space center for us as well as former nasa administrator, charles bolden. okay. so kristen, is this going to happen today? allison, with about 24 minutes left on the countdown clock, we are go for launch. we ve been watching two things this morning too. potential problem spots for nasa, boeing in the united launch alliance. and that is first the wind. it s been very gusty here, but so far, so good on the weather front, the weather team saying we are go for launch as of now, and then the other issue we ve been watching has been an issue with the center rocket let me just show you this is an older model here, so it s not