The seven-member crew of the International Space Station welcomed Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore, who docked with the Boeing Starliner space capsule, with great joy, according to the video published by the American Space Agency.
The Starliner's special feature is that it carried a crew into space for the first time. Mission controllers said some minor technical issues arose en route: They detected a helium leak and an engine malfunction, and the capsule was only able to contact the space station on the second attempt, MTI reports.
Boeing's spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral Spaceport in Florida on Wednesday, and Willmore and Williams, two experienced NASA astronauts, will spend about a week aboard the International Space Station. SpaceX's Dragon space capsule, which arrived at the space station earlier, docked with another station for the Starliner's arrival.
Starliner made its first successful unmanned test flight to the International Space Station in 2022, where the capsule spent three days before returning. However, due to various technical problems, the date of the first test flight with astronauts had to be postponed several times.
You can see how Williams and Wilmore were greeted by the other astronauts below:
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