Det 3 Recovery of Boeing Starliner Boiler Plate

Rescue team members prepare an inflatable front porch that will be attached to the Boeing CST-100 Starliner training capsule, known as Boiler Plate 3, during a search and rescue training exercise at the Army Wharf at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on April 16, 2019. The front porch will be used to extract astronauts from the capsule and conduct initial health assessments in the unlikely event of an emergency resulting in a splashdown. NASA and the Department of Defense Human Space Flight Support Office Rescue Division are conducting the exercise over the next several days at the Wharf and in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the first at-sea exercise with the Starliner training capsule ahead of Boeing’s Crew Flight Test with astronauts targeted for later this year. During normal return scenarios, Boeing's Starliner will land on land in a safe zone of about 15 square miles in the Western United States. Throughout the commercial crew development phases with NASA, Boeing has performed dozens of qualification tests on its parachute and airbag systems simulating conditions on land and in the water.

Rescue team members prepare an inflatable front porch that will be attached to the Boeing CST-100 Starliner training capsule, known as Boiler Plate 3, during a search and rescue training exercise at the Army Wharf at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on April 16, 2019. The front porch will be used to extract astronauts from the capsule and conduct initial health assessments in the unlikely event of an emergency resulting in a splashdown. NASA and the Department of Defense Human Space Flight Support Office Rescue Division are conducting the exercise over the next several days at the Wharf and in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the first at-sea exercise with the Starliner training capsule ahead of Boeing’s Crew Flight Test with astronauts targeted for later this year. During normal return scenarios, Boeing's Starliner will land on land in a safe zone of about 15 square miles in the Western United States. Throughout the commercial crew development phases with NASA, Boeing has performed dozens of qualification tests on its parachute and airbag systems simulating conditions on land and in the water.

Photographer NASA/Kim Shiflett
Location Army Wharf
CCPCommercial Crew ProgramBoeingCST-100 StarlinerBoiler Plate 3search and rescue trainingEmergency PlanningWater RescueDet 3Department of DefenseDoDHuman Space Flight Support Office Rescue DivisionHSFSArmy WharfCape Canaveral Air Force StationCCAFSastronautsInternational Space StationHuman Spaceflight