Starliner training systems unveiled as Johnson Space Center

HOUSTON (AP) — Boeing Space Exploration and NASA marked another milestone in the development of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft Wednesday with the installation of training and simulator systems at Johnson Space Center.

The Galveston County Daily News (http://bit.ly/2cE4re8 ) reports Boeing is one of two companies — SpaceX is the other — contracted by NASA in the final part of its commercial crew program, which will allow the United States to again launch people and material into space.

The training installations at the JSC — which include "part-task" crew trainers, an instructor operation station suite and a cloud-based simulation server — are the most current milestone reached by Boeing on the way to developing the Starliner spacecraft.

Included with several other training devices still under development by Boeing, these installations will be used to train Starliner crews and mission controllers for flights to low-Earth orbit, according to a news release.

Where the part-task trainers are meant to instruct crew members on mission phases, the instructor operator station suite is where controllers and instructors "will monitor flight crew and controller performance, introduce malfunctions and measure trainee responses."

Alongside the installation of the training devices, Boeing is working to accomplish other milestones for a scheduled crew test flight in 2018.

Ultimately, the goal of the Starliner goes beyond the NASA partnership into what Boeing hopes will be further commercial development in low-Earth orbit.