CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Installation of the CST-100 Starliner Crew Access Arm and White Room, the platform astronauts will walk across before boarding the spacecraft, was completed Monday at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The 50-foot-long, 90,000-pound platform was lifted by crane at Launch Complex 41.
"This is a really cool day, you think about where we were 18 months ago," said Chris Ferguson with Boeing, the company building the Starliner.
"I'm so proud to be leading the launch vehicle team that will bring human spaceflight back to American soil," said Barb Egan Commercial Crew Program Manager for United Launch Alliance.
ULA is targeting a February 2018 launch date for the first Starliner crew to be sent to the ISS by way of an Atlas V rocket.
The last time Americans were launched into space by an Atlas rocket was during the Mercury program which made John Glenn a national hero when he orbited the Earth in 1962.
"It's going to be so cool when our crew members are going to be stepping out across that Crew Access Arm to fly to the ISS," said Kathy Lueders, Commercial Crew Program Manager for NASA.
Astronauts who will travel in the Starliner are in a race to return to space against SpaceX.
Elon Musk's company wants to launch two astronauts into space a year from now in its Dragon spacecraft by way of a Falcon 9 rocket.