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(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans welcomed their first child, William Holmes Evans, on July 10, in Redwood City, California, according to birth records obtained by ABC News.

The birth comes as Holmes is awaiting criminal trial for 12 counts of fraud, beginning Aug. 31 in San Jose, California. If convicted, Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for each count of fraud. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The charges stem from allegations that Holmes, a Stanford dropout who became a media darling, engaged in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud investors about her blood-testing company, and a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients, according to the indictment.

During a pretrial hearing in June, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila stated there would be a quiet room for Holmes to tend to the newborn during breaks in the trial.

Holmes, 37, first informed the court of her pregnancy in March 2021, according to court filings. The news delayed the trial, previously scheduled for July 13, for a fourth time. The date had been moved three times due to the pandemic.

During a Zoom hearing following the filing, the prosecution voiced their frustration, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Leach saying it was “frustrating and disappointing to learn about this now.”

“Right or wrong, that is going to have a bearing on the jury’s perception of her,” Caroline Polisi, a federal white-collar criminal defense attorney, told ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis in “The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial” podcast. “Those types of things actually play a really large role in trials, even though they’re not supposed to.”

“Not only is that going to help her in her trial, but it will really help her in the event that she is convicted,” Polisi added. “The fact that she is a young, new mother is going to play into any potential sentence.”

However, defense attorney Jose Baez, famous for defending Casey Anthony, thinks it could backfire.

“I really think that could backfire because once a juror feels that one side is trying to manipulate them over another, they’re not going to like it,” he said.

Polisi and Baez, who are not associated with the trial, are among the top legal experts who will be appearing in “The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial,” an upcoming series of new episodes to ABC News’ No. 1 hit podcast, “The Dropout.” Each week, the podcast will take listeners inside the courtroom and track the trial with real-time reporting on the most important developments.

The new episodes will feature conversations between Jarvis and Holmes’ former colleagues and acquaintances, Theranos patients, top legal experts and others who will provide insight into the trial and Holmes.

The podcast will also bring listeners up to speed on the twists and turns since Holmes was first charged.

“The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial” debuts with two episodes on Aug. 31 and is available for free on major listening platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, TuneIn, Audacy and the ABC News app.

New episodes post Tuesdays throughout the trial with bonus episodes as news warrants. It is written by Rebecca Jarvis, Victoria Thompson and Taylor Dunn. Jarvis and Dunn are producers, and Thompson is executive producer.

ABC News’ Dea Athon contributed to this report.

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(SAN FRANCISCO) — Amazon has pushed back the date for tech and corporate employees to return to office to 2022, as COVID-19 cases fueled by the highly transmissible delta variant continue to rise.

The company, which previously planned for employees to return the week of Sept. 7, has postponed reopening its doors to workers until at least Jan. 3, the company confirmed to ABC News.

The tech giant said it will continue to follow local government guidance in planning to reopen work spaces.

It’s not clear whether Amazon will require employees to be vaccinated to return to the office, but the company did tell ABC News it will require employees to wear masks in the office unless they can verify they’re fully vaccinated.

The move comes as other large companies, including several tech rivals, have made similar announcements on delaying return to in-person work and mandating staffers get vaccinated.

Microsoft announced earlier this week that return-to-office plans would be delayed to October, and employees will be required to be fully vaccinated to enter U.S. offices and work sites, The Associated Press reported.

Google, Facebook, Uber and a number of hospitals have announced similar requirements.

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(ATLANTA) — When the pandemic hit the U.S. in March 2020, Schantayln Sherman, a single mother of a daughter with special needs, faced a series of medical and financial setbacks that left her unable to pay her rent.

As she received rental assistance, Sherman said she tried to look for more affordable housing but that it was the “hardest thing” because stock is low, demand is high, waitlists are long and restrictions in terms of credit scores and income levels are limiting.

“I have been looking to find more affordable housing, and, unfortunately, here in Atlanta, or if I even moved to another city in Georgia, it’s just not there right now. The rent is expensive everywhere,” she told ABC News.

According to affordable housing advocates and experts, Sherman’s experience is part of a national crisis that predates the pandemic: a shortage of affordable housing for low-income communities.

According to a July report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, rent is “out of reach” for most low-wage workers in every U.S. state — a crisis that disproportionately harms people of color. A full-time worker has to earn at least $20.40 per hour to afford renting a modest one-bedroom home or $24.90 per hour for a modest two-bedroom home, according to the report.

Henry Louis Taylor Jr., a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo, said the housing shortage also is a root cause of poverty.

“If poor people were paying 15 to 20% of their income on housing, poverty, as we know it, would have disappeared,” he said. “You can’t attack these issues without government intervention aimed at reducing the costs of housing and raising its quality.”

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge wrote in the NLIHC report that the findings highlight “the urgent need for our government to expand affordable housing.”

She also outlined how the Biden administration’s budget and “Build Back Better” agenda, which includes funds for rental assistance and investments in building or modernizing affordable housing units that “would serve as a critical down payment toward his plan to put housing assistance in reach for every household in need.”

‘A landlord’s market’

Taylor said that the private sector has always failed to provide a sufficient stock of quality housing options for low-income communities and the government hasn’t done enough to correct that market failure.

Jonathan Cappelli, an affordable housing advocate and director of the Neighborhood Development Collaborative in Colorado, echoed Taylor’s sentiment, describing the environment as “a landlord’s market.”

Cappelli told ABC News that rental assistance funds are meant for tenants and landlords who are experiencing financial hardships during the pandemic, but in states like Colorado the majority of the funds have not been distributed.

And as landlords struggle to recover, many are likely to raise rents that are already surging, Cappelli said.

“Those rents are just going to keep on climbing up, and it will continue to serve just higher and higher incomes and create more and more scarcity for low and moderate income households,” he added.

Hannah Adams, a staff attorney at Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, said much of the current rental housing stock is “incredibly substandard, and really much of it is unlivable” — and landlords have no incentive to improve it.

“When you have people lined up down the street for one available affordable housing unit, there’s really no competition in the market,” she explained.

Adams represents low-income renters experiencing housing instability or health-threatening living conditions in the New Orleans area and beyond, where COVID-19 cases are surging. She said she’s been flooded with calls from tenants during the pandemic over deteriorating living conditions.

The shortage “forces the lowest-income, most vulnerable tenants into really substandard housing conditions, which can exacerbate the health impacts of the pandemic,” she added.

Mass evictions loom

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order on Tuesday barring evictions for 60 days in counties with “substantial and high levels” of community transmission, but that relief is temporary and housing insecurity continues to haunt millions.

More than 15 million people already live in households currently behind on their rent payments, putting them at risk of eviction, according to a report released last week by the nonprofit think tank Aspen Institute.

Sherman is one of them.

Amid the pandemic, her 18-year-old daughter Jasmine, who is nonverbal, in a wheelchair and requires around-the-clock care, lost access to her therapy sessions and had to stay home. And as Sherman struggled to find affordable caregivers, she suffered an injury that required surgery and eventually took unpaid, family and medical job-protected leave from her job as a clinical administrator to care for herself and her daughter.

Although she was initially able to receive rental assistance, Sherman received an eviction notice last week after a payment for the month of July was not received by her property manager.

“I was very shocked and it was really heartbreaking when I received that notice,” she said. “Sometimes things happen to people out of their control. And, you know, I was seeking assistance … it just didn’t come fast enough.”

Sherman told ABC News on Wednesday that her property manager agreed to cancel the eviction filing while payment is processing, but her ongoing housing insecurity is leading to “a lot of anxiety and stress.”

“You don’t know from day to day what’s going to happen,” she said, adding that she has been looking for more affordable housing every day but feels “stuck” because prices are so high.

“I’m trying to move out of Atlanta, to move somewhere where maybe, possibly, you know, the rent can be a little bit more affordable. But every time I look everywhere, the prices are expensive,” she said, adding that her dream of becoming a homeowner for now seems “out of reach.”

“I’m hoping you know, that I will be in a place where I can have my own dream home, but right now it’s just very difficult, and it’s just not looking good right now. So I’m going to have to continue to rent.”
 

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(IRVINE, Calif.) — The president of Blizzard Entertainment is departing the company after accusations that a “frat boy” workplace culture fostered gender discrimination and sexual harassment.

In a letter to staff posted on its website, the chief operating officer of Blizzard’s parent company, Activision Blizzard, announced Tuesday that J. Allen Brack was leaving “to pursue new opportunities.”

COO Daniel Alegre also said that Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra have been appointed as the new “co-leaders of Blizzard.”

The leadership shakeup at the maker of popular video games including “Overwatch” and “World of Warcraft” comes after a lawsuit that alleges rampant discrimination and sexual harassment at the company.

California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed the suit late last month, which accuses the company of fostering a sexist culture and paying women less than men for similar work. Moreover, it states that women were promoted at slower rates than men and fired or forced to quit at higher frequencies than men.

The agency also said that women were subject to constant sexual harassment and the company failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the conduct even when it was known.

The complaint states the company “fostered a pervasive ‘frat boy’ workplace culture” that is “a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women.” It also mentioned a “particularly tragic example,” stating that “a female employee committed suicide during a business trip with a male supervisor.”

“Numerous complaints” were made to human resources, according to the lawsuit, but the company did not address them and female employees who went to HR were subject to retaliation.

Blizzard Entertainment did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for further comment on the allegations raised in the lawsuit, but Activision Blizzard’s CEO Bobby Kotick sent a letter to staff shortly after it was filed promising sweeping workplace reforms and announcing the law firm WilmerHale had been tapped to conduct a review of policies and procedures.

His full letter was shared with investors on the company’s website.

“This has been a difficult and upsetting week,” Kotick said in the July 27 letter to employees. “I want to recognize and thank all those who have come forward in the past and in recent days. I so appreciate your courage.”

In a statement to IGN, the company said the “DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.”

Kotick promised the company was taking “swift action to be the compassionate, caring company you came to work for and to ensure a safe environment.”

“There is no place anywhere at our Company for discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind,” Kotick wrote. “We will do everything possible to make sure that together, we improve and build the kind of inclusive workplace that is essential to foster creativity and inspiration.”

He also acknowledged that initial responses to concerns “were, quite frankly, tone deaf.” He encouraged employees to contact WilmerHale’s team to voice any concerns.

The overhaul at the video game giant comes years after much of the entertainment sector was hit with a #MeToo revolution that toppled prominent male executives across multiple industries.

Some critics have said the tech sector’s gender equity efforts still lag behind.

Kevin Kish, the director of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, called for all employers to ensure equal pay and take steps to prevent discrimination and harassment in a statement announcing the Blizzard suit.

“This is especially important for employers in male-dominated industries, such as technology and gaming,” Kish added.
 

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(WASHINGTON) — Thousands of Spirit Airlines passengers are still facing canceled flights on Wednesday as the airline’s operational meltdown stretches into a third day.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Spirit cancelled 418 flights, or 60% of its daily operations.

So far this week, Spirit has had to cancel around half of its flights each day: 42% of its Monday flights and 61% of its Tuesday flights.

“What’s this been like for you?” ABC News’ Correspondent Victor Oquendo asked a traveler who has been trying to get to Washington, D.C., from Miami.

“Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing,” Natasha Baptiste responded.

Other Spirit customers told ABC News that they were stranded and forced to spend the night at Spirit bases such as Fort-Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport in Florida.

The airline initially said cancelations would slow down by Tuesday, but a spokesperson explained that the cancelations were the result of a “perfect storm,” blaming weather, staffing shortages and crews reaching the hour limits in which they are legally able to fly.

In its latest statement issued on Wednesday, Spirit vowed that the cancelations will finally start dropping on Thursday.

“We’ve dealt with overlapping operational challenges including weather, system outages and staffing shortages that caused widespread irregularities in our operation and impacted crew scheduling,” Spirit said in a statement. “These issues were exacerbated by the fact that we are in peak summer travel season with very high industry load factors and more limited options for Guest re-accommodations.”

After being hit with an IT issue Tuesday that affected crew scheduling, the airline said they have “implemented a more thorough reboot of the network” which allows them to get crews where they need to be to restore normal operations.

The airline will now provide double pay to flight attendants who pick up extra shifts.

The low-cost carrier said that they’ve taken an “in-depth” look at the challenges they are currently facing and have “identified opportunities for improvement.”

“We continue to work around the clock to get our Guests where they need to be,” Spirit insisted.

Spirit recommends customers affected by the cancelations use its online chat feature for assistance.

The cancelations come as air travel continues to break pandemic records.

Transportation Security Administration officers screened more than 2.2 million people at U.S. airports nationwide Sunday — the highest checkpoint volume since the start of the pandemic.

ABC News’ Sam Sweeney and Amanda Maile contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Frontier flight attendants, with the help of passengers, had to tape an unruly passenger to his seat Saturday after he allegedly groped two of the attendants and punched a third in the face.

In an initial statement to ABC News, the low-cost carrier said the flight attendants involved had been “suspended pending further investigation” because they did not follow the proper policies for restraining a passenger.

The news of the suspension prompted backlash from the nation’s largest flight attendant union — demanding Frontier reinstate them.

“Management should be supporting the crew at this time, not suspending them,” Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA) President Sara Nelson said. “We will be fighting this with every contractual and legal tool available, but we would hope there will be no need for that as management comes to their senses and supports the people on the frontline charged with keeping all passengers safe.”

Frontier then issued a revised statement saying the flight attendants were on paid leave which is “in line with an event of this nature pending an investigation.”

“Frontier Airlines maintains the utmost value, respect, concern and support for all of our flight attendants, including those who were assaulted on this flight,” the airline’s statement continued. “We are supporting the needs of these team members and are working with law enforcement to fully support the prosecution of the passenger involved.”

The unruly passenger was identified by authorities as 22-year-old Maxwell Berry. He was arrested after the flight landed in Miami and is now facing three counts of battery.

Saturday’s case is the latest in a surge of unruly passenger incidents onboard planes. The Federal Aviation Administration has received more than 3,700 reports of unruly passengers since January with more than 2,700 of them involving fliers who refuse to wear a mask.

Last week the flight attendants union released a survey that found that 85% of the nearly 5,000 U.S. flight attendants they surveyed said they had dealt with an unruly passenger in 2021.

Almost 60% said they had experienced not one, but at least five incidents this year, and 17% reported that the incident got physical.

Flight attendants recalled incidents in which visibly drunk passengers verbally abused them, “aggressively” challenged them for making sure passengers were in compliance with the federal mask mandate, shoved them, kicked seats, threw trash at them and defiled the restrooms.

More than half of the flight attendants reported that unruly passengers used racist, sexist and/or homophobic slurs.

“I’ve been yelled at, cursed at and threatened countless times in the last year and the most that has come out of it has been a temporary suspension of travel for the passenger,” one flight attendant wrote in the survey. “We need real consequences if flight attendants are ever going to feel safe at work again.”

The AFA is doubling down on its call for the FAA and Department of Justice to “protect passengers and crew from disruptive and verbally and physically abusive travelers.”

A DOJ spokesperson told ABC News that “interference with flight crew members is a serious crime that deserves the attention of federal law enforcement.”

“As with any case, we exercise prosecutorial discretion in deciding which cases to charge federally,” the spokesperson continued. “Factors include egregiousness of the offense, were lives in danger, victim impact, mental health, did the plane have to make an unscheduled landing, is this a repeat offense, are there mitigating factors, etc. This is a serious crime that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.”

The FAA is still enforcing its zero-tolerance policy for in-flight disruptions which could lead to fines as high as $52,500 and up to 20 years in prison. The agency has looked into more than 628 potential violations of federal law so far this year — the highest number since the agency began keeping records in 1995.

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(New York) — Boeing’s chance at redemption for its Starliner spacecraft will have to wait for now. The launch attempt scheduled for Tuesday was scrubbed at the last minute due to an unexpected incident with the spacecraft, NASA said.

The attempt was scrubbed “due to unexpected valve position indications in the Starliner propulsion system,” NASA noted. Further details were not immediately available, but the space agency said the next launch opportunity is 12:57 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

The second test flight for Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft was scheduled to launch from the Florida coast on Tuesday afternoon before it was called off. This comes on the heels of last week’s launch attempt also being scrubbed due to an unplanned thruster-firing incident on the International Space Station.

The first Starliner launch in December 2019 famously did not go as planned and the spacecraft never reached the ISS.

NASA was set to carry live coverage of the uncrewed mission starting at 12:30 p.m. ET Tuesday. It’s part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, in which the space agency tapped the private sector to help with missions in low-Earth orbit. It’s not immediately clear when the next launch opportunity will be.

On Monday, the Starliner spacecraft and a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket were rolled out on to the launch pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ahead of Tuesday’s liftoff. Meteorologists with the U.S. Space Force 45th Weather Squadron predicted a 60% chance of favorable weather for launch day.

After launching, the Starliner was supposed to commence a daylong trip to the space station.

The spaceship was set to bring some 400 pounds of cargo and supplies to the space station crew.

While the test flight is uncrewed, an anthropometric dummy dubbed “Rosie the Rocketeer” will be aboard the Starliner when it launches.The 180-pound test device will sit in the commander’s seat of the capsule for the test flight, and its sensors will be used to collect data on how the launch will impact eventual human passengers. The model human was named after the World War II icon Rosie the Riveter, and is meant to honor women pioneers in aerospace. The test device is clad in the iconic red polka-dot bandana.

Boeing also said it will be paying tribute to more than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities during the upcoming flight test. Among the cargo inside the spacecraft are flags, small pennants and other items “representing HBCUs from throughout the U.S.,” according to a statement from the company.

NASA and Boeing blamed errors in automation and software issues for the botched launch in December 2019, saying mission clocks were not in sync and thus timing errors prevented the Starliner from reaching the orbit it needed in order to get to the space station. Rather than reach the space station, the Starliner landed in White Sands, New Mexico.

The second test flight mission is seen as critical for Boeing, as it has yet to launch astronauts for NASA while its Commercial Crew program competitor SpaceX has flown multiple crewed missions to the space station in addition to numerous cargo flights. Boeing is also still reeling from the fallout related to issues with its 737 Max jets. If the Starliner launch fails again, it is difficult to see how it will be able to remain competitive against SpaceX for NASA contracts — especially as the private sector’s involvement in the budding commercial space industry has grown significantly over the past year.

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(NEW YORK) — Thousands of Spirit Airlines and American Airlines passengers faced cancellations and delays on Monday in the latest summer travel snag.

The airlines canceled more than 800 flights combined on Monday, and delayed more than 1,000.

A Spirit spokesperson told ABC News the cancellations are the result of a “perfect storm,” blaming weather, staffing shortages and crews reaching the hour limits in which they are legally able to fly.

In order to get their operations back on track, they proactively canceled 313 flights, which is around 40% of their daily operation. The cancellations gave Spirit “breathing room” to ensure crews and planes can get to the right locations, the spokesperson said.

Frustrated passengers took to social media tweeting that they were stranded, forced to wait in long lines, or rerouted.

“We’re working around the clock to get back on track in the wake of some travel disruptions over the weekend due to a series of weather and operational challenges,” Spirit said in a statement. “We needed to make proactive cancellations to some flights across the network, but the majority of flights are still scheduled as planned.”

American canceled 529 flights on Monday, almost 20% of its daily operation.

The carrier told ABC News it’s still recovering from inclement weather Sunday in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. A spokesperson said severe thunderstorms moved in and at least 80 flights had to divert to other airports, adding that it is currently repositioning planes and crews to improve the operation. . The cancellations come as air travel continues to break pandemic records.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers screened more than 2.2 million people at U.S. airports nationwide Sunday — the highest checkpoint volume since the start of the pandemic.

All U.S. airlines and the TSA have struggled with staffing as air travel has rapidly jumped from historic lows to approaching pre-pandemic levels.

When air travel came to a halt in March 2020, thousands of employees were offered early retirements and buyouts, but now the airlines are desperate to fill these positions again.

Hundreds of American Airlines flights were cancelled in late June because of significant staffing and maintenance issues.

During its most recent earnings call, Southwest Airlines executives revealed they have had to double their hiring efforts because they are getting fewer applications than they are used to.

“If it’s not the number one focus, it is 1A, which is getting our hiring in place and our staffing in place,” Southwest’s Executive Vice President Robert Jordan said.

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(NEW YORK) — Black women are typically paid only 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, which means they have to work seven months into 2021, Aug. 3, to earn what white, non-Hispanic men made in 2020 alone.

The gender wage gap has closed by only three cents for Black women over the last 30 years, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a policy-focused organization that fights for gender justice.

As a result of the wage gap, Black women, on average, lose $2,009 each month, $24,110 annually, and $964,400 over the course of a 40-year career, according to a new analysis by the NWLC.

Equal Pay Day for all women was marked on March 24, 2021, meaning that Black women have to work an extra five months to catch up.

This year’s Black Women’s Equal Pay Day comes as Black women are continuing to face the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, during which Black women have been hit disproportionately hard.

Over 1 in 12 Black women ages 20 and over were unemployed in June, an increase of 8% since May. And Black women’s unemployment rate remains nearly two times higher than their pre-pandemic unemployment rate, according to the NWLC.

In July, the median weekly earnings for a Black woman were $746, compared to $1,115 for a white man, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

With Black women more likely to be the breadwinner for their family, the pay gap matters even more in a time of economic uncertainty like the pandemic, according to Nicole Mason, president and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

“When we have a pandemic and then the economic downturn, there’s less money to ride out an economic storm, less money that they’re bringing home, especially if their hours have been cut,” Mason told Good Morning America last year. “Some people think that the pay gap doesn’t exist or you don’t really feel it, but women feel it every day in their wallets, every day when they go to work and bring home less, or during an economic downturn or job loss. They don’t have the money they need to be able to provide for their families.”

Mason’s organization has released research that estimates Black women will not bring home the same earnings as white men for the same jobs until 2130 if the current rate of change persists.

When it comes to solutions for closing the pay gap for Black women, Mason said the federal government can play a role in passing legislation that promotes pay equity and pay transparency and works to end workplace discrimination.

She said employers can play a role, too.

“Employers have a role to play in terms of making sure there is pay equity and making sure that women across the board earn what they’re worth and the skills and talents they bring to the table,” Mason added. “And as a culture and a society, we have a lot of work to do in terms of breaking gender stereotypes around women in the workplace, their value and how much women should be paid for their work.”

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(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — After a very public flop in 2019, Boeing’s chance at redemption for its Starliner spacecraft is finally here.

The second test flight for Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is scheduled to launch from the Florida coast on Tuesday at 1:20 p.m. ET, after a launch attempt last week was scrubbed due to an unplanned thruster-firing incident on the International Space Station. The first Starliner launch in December 2019 famously did not go as planned, and the spacecraft never reached the ISS.

NASA will carry live coverage of the uncrewed mission as it is a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, in which the space agency tapped the private sector to help with missions in low-Earth orbit. Live coverage of the Starliner launch will commence on NASA’s website and social media handles at 12:30 p.m. ET.

On Monday, the Starliner spacecraft and a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket were rolled out onto the launch pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ahead of Tuesday’s liftoff. Meteorologists with the U.S. Space Force 45th Weather Squadron are predicting a 60% chance of favorable weather for launch day.

Approximately 30 minutes after launch, the Starliner is set to perform its orbital insertion burn that kicks off its daylong trip to the space station. It is then scheduled to dock at the ISS at 1:37 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

The spaceship is bringing some 400 pounds of cargo and supplies to the space station crew.

While the test flight is unmanned, an anthropometric dummy dubbed “Rosie the Rocketeer” will be aboard the Starliner. The 180-pound test device will sit in the commander’s seat of the capsule for the test flight, and its sensors will be used to collect data on how the launch will impact eventual human passengers. The model human was named after the World War II icon Rosie the Riveter, and is meant to honor women pioneers in aerospace. The test device is clad in the iconic red polka-dot bandana.

Boeing also said it will be paying tribute to more than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities during the flight test. Among the cargo inside the spacecraft are flags, small pennants and other items “representing HBCUs from throughout the U.S.,” according to a statement from the company.

NASA and Boeing blamed errors in automation and software issues for the botched launch in December 2019, saying mission clocks were not in sync and thus timing errors prevented the Starliner from reaching the orbit it needed in order to get to the space station. Rather than reach the space station, the Starliner landed in White Sands, New Mexico.

Tuesday’s mission is seen as critical for Boeing, as it has yet to launch astronauts for NASA while its Commercial Crew program competitor SpaceX has flown multiple crewed missions to the space station in addition to numerous cargo flights. Boeing is also still reeling from the fallout related to issues with its 737 Max jets. If the Starliner launch fails again, it is difficult to see how it will be able to remain competitive against SpaceX for NASA contracts — especially as the private sector’s involvement in the budding commercial space industry has grown significantly over the past year.

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