breaking news hello everyone. thanks for joining me on. alison chemla, radha, and for fredricka whitfield, we have an exciting program for you today because within the next half an hour, we expect to witness the first ever boeing starliner spacecraft launched from cape canaveral, florida to the international space station. this is not a practice run this its launch has to american astronauts on board but officials and spectators are holding their breath a bit because this mission was already postponed a few times, veteran nasa astronauts, butch wilmore and suni williams are on board. and boeing is trying with this to compete with its rivals space x as nasa tries to 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
perfectly accurate, but it ll give you an idea of what we re talking about. so this is the bow, the boeing starliner capsule and spacecraft on top. this is where the two nasa astronauts are. what s below it is the atlas rocket. and this is what s going to propel the starliner spacecraft into orbit. this right here is called the rocket s upper stage. it s the center and there was an issue here during that first scrub back on may six. now, an issue again, but different. it s an issue with a sensor for a topping valve, essentially a valve that tops up the fuel inside this upper stage of the rocket they went about through about an hour of checks trying to figure it out. they ended up switching to a backup system. they think they ve got it fixed. so we are now go for launch and i should just point out, allison, the capsule is made by boeing. this whole rocket is made by the united launch alliance. so different company that s what the issue was with, as i