NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Astronaut News Conference (March 22, 2024)

NASA will host a question answer session with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two NASA astronaut test pilots set to launch for the first time on Boeing Starliner’s Crewed Flight test. Launch is targeted for early May lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Participants: • Butch Wilmore, NASA astronaut, mission commander Wilmore, a U.S. Navy captain, is a veteran of two spaceflights and has accumulated 178 days in space. Selected as an astronaut in 2000, he served as a flight engineer for Expedition 41 from September to November 2014, then assumed command of Expedition 42 until his return to Earth in March 2015. During this mission, he logged 167 days in space and performed four spacewalks. In 2009, Wilmore served as a pilot aboard space shuttle Atlantis for STS-129. From Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, Wilmore earned degrees from Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. • Suni Williams, NASA astronaut, mission pilot Williams, a retired Navy captain, is a veteran of two space station missions, Expedition 14/15 and 32/33, and served as commander of Expedition 33. Selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1998, she has logged 322 days in space, first launching on the space shuttle Discovery with the crew of STS-116, then on a Roscosmos Soyuz spacecraft. Williams has completed seven spacewalks, totaling 50 hours and 40 minutes. Williams considers Needham, Massachusetts, to be her hometown and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1987 and Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, in 1995. Learn more about how NASA innovates for the benefit of humanity through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at: