Boeing's Next Starliner Flight Will Only Be Allowed to Carry Cargo

The US space bureau ended months of speculation astir the adjacent formation of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, confirming that the conveyance volition transportation lone cargo to the International Space Station.

NASA and Boeing are present targeting nary earlier than April 2026 to alert the uncrewed Starliner-1 mission, the abstraction bureau said. Launching by adjacent April volition necessitate completion of rigorous test, certification, and ngo readiness activities, NASA added successful a statement.

“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously trial the Starliner propulsion strategy successful mentation for 2 imaginable flights adjacent year,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, successful a statement.

Reducing Crewed Missions

NASA besides said it has reached an statement with Boeing to modify the Commercial Crew contract, signed successful 2014, that called for six crewed flights to the abstraction presumption pursuing certification of the spacecraft. Now the program is to alert Starliner-1 carrying cargo, and past up to 3 further missions earlier the abstraction presumption is retired.

“This modification allows NASA and Boeing to absorption connected safely certifying the strategy successful 2026, execute Starliner’s archetypal unit rotation erstwhile ready, and align our ongoing formation readying for aboriginal Starliner missions based connected station’s operational needs done 2030,” Stich said.

SpaceX and Boeing were some awarded contracts successful 2014 to make crewed spacecraft and alert six operational missions to the abstraction station. SpaceX, with its Crew Dragon vehicle, flew a palmy unit trial formation successful mid-2020 and its archetypal operational ngo earlier the extremity of that year. Most recently, the Crew-11 ngo launched successful August, with Crew-12 presently scheduled for February 15.

Dragon has served arsenic a reliable transport strategy for NASA arsenic Boeing has faced improvement struggles.

Starliner’s archetypal formation successful December 2019, without crew, had to beryllium truncated aft bundle problems plagued the vehicle. It was astir mislaid soon aft motorboat arsenic good arsenic earlier atmospheric reentry. It did not marque a planned rendezvous with the abstraction station.

The 2nd mission, Orbital Flight Test 2, took spot successful May 2022. Because of problems connected the erstwhile mission, this spacecraft besides flew uncrewed. This formation was much successful, reaching the abstraction presumption contempt immoderate thruster issues.

Orbital Flight Test 3?

NASA past spent much than 2 years investigating Starliner connected the crushed earlier its archetypal crewed formation successful 2024, carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. During its attack to the abstraction station, the Starliner spacecraft erstwhile again experienced superior thruster issues. (However, the life-and-death quality of this formation was not revealed until astir a twelvemonth later.) Starliner yet docked with the station, but aft heated deliberations, NASA informed Boeing that the conveyance would instrumentality to Earth uncrewed.

As a result, a Dragon ngo was launched aboriginal successful 2024 carrying conscionable 2 astronauts alternatively of a afloat complement of four. This allowed for the harmless instrumentality of Wilmore and Williams successful March 2025.

Since then, it has appeared apt that Boeing would beryllium required to alert an uncrewed ngo to show the information of Starliner’s propulsion system, but this was not confirmed until Monday.

NASA has remained mostly mum astir the changes made to Boeing’s propulsion strategy and the tests it has undergone connected the ground. Part of the occupation with diagnosing the thruster issues is that the problems occurred successful the “service module” information of the spacecraft, which is jettisoned earlier the conveyance reenters Earth’s ambiance and returns to Earth.

This communicative primitively appeared on Ars Technica.