Boeing Space, on May 21, made history by successfully docking its CST-100 Starliner to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time in its second attempt. The aerospace company launched Starliner as part of the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission on May 20, as part of NASA’s Commerical Crew program. After meeting and jumping, the astronauts living in the space station opened the hatch of the spacecraft and unloaded some of the cargo inside.
While Starliner arrived without astronauts, he had a mannequin attached to the commander’s post. The OFT-2 mission marked the second space flight of the model named “Rosie Rocket”, which is a tribute to a famous person from the time of World War II.
(Rosie Rocket; Image: Boeing Space)
The story of the “Rose Rocket”
Designed to gather data on what astronauts will experience during an actual flight, the model is named after Rosie Riveter of World War II “as an ode to women who have paved the way for space and human spaceflight,” Boeing said. Rosie the Undercutter, a fictional character, was an icon of the US recruitment campaign, which called for women to participate in World War II. For Boeing’s second orbital test flight, the model wore a blue spacesuit and red dotted scarf, along with a matching face mask sewn by hand by 95-year-old May Krier.
According to Boeing, Krier is the real Rosie who helped build planes at the Seattle factory when she was just 17 years old. Melanie Weber, head of the crew and cargo subsystem in the commercial crew program, said before the flight: “Women in outer space have made great strides and we hope that Rosie will inspire more to enter the industry. It is absolutely important to involve all people in this field to make sure that our services and products are suitable for all people. We only become stronger when we have different points of view.
To collect data on space flights, the 81-kilogram mannequin is equipped with 15 sensors to monitor the movement of the four crew seats in the Starliner capsule. Rosie was launched from the Cape Canaveral space station in Florida as Boeing seeks a NASA license to transport astronauts to and from the space station. Earlier today, NASA even shared a video of astronaut Bob Hines touring the Starliner capsule with Rosie sitting inside. Meanwhile, astronauts will continue to unload Starliner cargo for the next few days before it leaves on May 25.
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