Rosie the Rocketeer flying on Boeing's OFT-2 test flight
Rosie the Rocketeer is the crash test dummy tasked with riding inside Boeing's Starliner capsule. (Image credit: Boeing)
The mission of Rosie, a test dummie, is to strap into the commander's seat of Starliner, Boeing's astronaut taxi, for Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), an uncrewed mission poised to launch to the International Space Station today, May 19. OFT-2 will be Rosie's second spaceflight, after providing valuable test data during the first Starliner mission, OFT-1, in December 2019. While OFT-1 didn't meet its objective of docking with the International Space Station, the 180-pound (82 kilograms) Rosie did her job, collecting data on the flight from 15 sensors to inform how the stresses of spaceflight affect astronauts. Rosie the Rocketeer's namesake was inspired by a recruitment campaign during World War II. With millions of American men serving overseas, the gap in the labor force was so great that an unprecedented courting of women began. (Women were previously discouraged from joining many types of factory work.)
