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Two NASA astronauts have reached the final hours before the long-awaited launch attempt aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule, marking the brand new spacecraft’s first manned mission.

The Starliner — which the aerospace giant designed to rival SpaceX’s prolific Crew Dragon capsule — is scheduled to lift off for its first manned test at 10:34 p.m. ET Monday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

NASA will broadcast the event on its channels at 6:30 PM ET Monday. CNN will provide live updates of the mission online shortly before liftoff.

Weather or technical issues can always cause a rocket launch to grind out until the countdown clock hits zero, but tonight’s forecast is as good as it gets. Weather officials said there was only a 5 percent chance of clouds, winds or storms disrupting takeoff tonight.

That mission, called the Crew Flight Test, could be the last major milestone before NASA judges Boeing’s spacecraft ready for routine operations as part of the federal agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The Starliner will join SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in NASA’s push to collaborate with private industry partners, expanding the United States’ ability to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.

The mission crew members are veteran astronauts Sunny Williams and Butch Wilmore, who each ventured into space on two previous trips aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle and Russia’s Soyuz missions.

“They’re checking a lot of the systems: the life support, the manual controls,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a press conference Friday. “That’s why we brought two test pilots on board – and of course Butch and Sunny’s CVs are extensive.”

If all goes according to plan, the crew will board the Starliner capsule and blast off atop an Atlas V rocket Monday evening. The spacecraft – carrying the astronauts – will separate from the rocket after reaching orbit and start firing its own engines. The Starliner will then spend more than 24 hours phasing into the space station, where the vehicle is expected to dock at 12:46 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Williams and Wilmore will spend about a week aboard the orbiting laboratory, joining the seven astronauts and cosmonauts already aboard while the Starliner remains docked outside.

The two will then return home aboard the same Starliner capsule, which is expected to parachute to a landing in one of several designated locations in the southwestern United States.

A lot of fighting on a smooth test flight. NASA has waited half a decade for the Starliner to begin flying with a crew, and Starliner’s development has been plagued by years of delays, setbacks and mistakes. More broadly, Boeing as a company has suffered from years of scandals in its aircraft division that have tarnished the legacy aerospace giant’s brand.

“We went through a pretty rigorous process to get here,” Mark Nappi, vice president and Starliner program manager at Boeing, said of the development process during Friday’s briefing. “And actually the source of my confidence comes from going through this process.”

If successful, the crewed test flight could lead Boeing to begin routine flights to the space station on behalf of NASA.

The US space agency selected Boeing to develop the Starliner – along with SpaceX and its Crew Dragon capsule – in 2014, hoping the commercial companies would create additional new means of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station after the retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011 .

SpaceX eventually beat Boeing to the launch pad, performing its manned flight test of the Crew Dragon capsule in May 2020. SpaceX handled most of NASA’s crew transportation needs since then.