A Boeing engineer helps join the two domes for a CST-100 Starliner.
The upper dome of a Boeing CST-100 Starliner is lowered onto the lower dome to complete the first hull of the Starliner’s Structural Test Article, a prototype spacecraft that is identical to the operational versions but not meant to fly in space. The work was performed inside the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The STA is built to endure harsh tests mimicking conditions of spaceflight to prove the design and its manufacturing techniques will work for space-bound Starliners. Photo credit: Boeing