The US area company ended months of hypothesis concerning the subsequent flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, confirming that the automobile will carry solely cargo to the Worldwide House Station.
NASA and Boeing at the moment are focusing on no sooner than April 2026 to fly the uncrewed Starliner-1 mission, the area company stated. Launching by subsequent April would require completion of rigorous take a look at, certification, and mission readiness actions, NASA added in a statement.
“NASA and Boeing are persevering with to carefully take a look at the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for 2 potential flights subsequent 12 months,” stated Steve Stich, supervisor of NASA’s Industrial Crew Program, in a press release.
Decreasing Crewed Missions
NASA additionally stated it has reached an settlement with Boeing to switch the Industrial Crew contract, signed in 2014, that referred to as for six crewed flights to the area station following certification of the spacecraft. Now the plan is to fly Starliner-1 carrying cargo after which as much as three extra missions earlier than the area station is retired.
“This modification permits NASA and Boeing to give attention to safely certifying the system in 2026, execute Starliner’s first crew rotation when prepared, and align our ongoing flight planning for future Starliner missions based mostly on station’s operational wants by way of 2030,” Stich stated.
SpaceX and Boeing had been each awarded contracts in 2014 to develop crewed spacecraft and fly six operational missions to the area station. SpaceX, with its Crew Dragon automobile, flew a profitable crew take a look at flight in mid-2020 and its first operational mission earlier than the top of that 12 months. Most lately, the Crew-11 mission launched in August, with Crew-12 presently scheduled for February 15.
Dragon has served as a dependable transport system for NASA as Boeing has confronted improvement struggles.
Starliner’s first flight in December 2019, with out crew, needed to be truncated after software program issues plagued the automobile. It was practically misplaced shortly after launch in addition to earlier than atmospheric reentry. It didn’t make a deliberate rendezvous with the area station.
The second mission, Orbital Flight Take a look at 2, befell in Could 2022. Due to issues on the earlier mission, this spacecraft additionally flew uncrewed. This flight was extra profitable, reaching the area station regardless of some thruster points.
Orbital Flight Take a look at 3?
NASA then spent greater than two years testing Starliner on the bottom earlier than its first crewed flight in 2024, carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Throughout its method to the area station, the Starliner spacecraft as soon as once more skilled critical thruster points. (Nonetheless, the life-and-death nature of this flight was not revealed till practically a 12 months later.) Starliner in the end docked with the station, however after heated deliberations, NASA knowledgeable Boeing that the automobile would return to Earth uncrewed.
Because of this, a Dragon mission was launched later in 2024 carrying simply two astronauts as a substitute of a full complement of 4. This allowed for the protected return of Wilmore and Williams in March 2025.
Since then, it has appeared doubtless that Boeing could be required to fly an uncrewed mission to display the protection of Starliner’s propulsion system, however this was not confirmed till Monday.
NASA has remained largely mum concerning the modifications made to Boeing’s propulsion system and the exams it has undergone on the bottom. A part of the issue with diagnosing the thruster points is that the issues occurred within the “service module” portion of the spacecraft, which is jettisoned earlier than the automobile reenters Earth’s ambiance and returns to Earth.
This story initially appeared on Ars Technica.
