Earlier this year, NASA officials seemed optimistic that Starliner would get to fly again by April. Obviously that did not happen. Now, the space agency has extended its ambitious timeline by at least another year as Boeing continues to try to fix its wonky spacecraft.
During a meeting on Monday, members of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said that the agency and Boeing are still committed to Starliner’s return to flight, but there was no target timeline for the launch of an uncrewed mission, Spaceflight Now reports.
“NASA and Boeing continue working toward the goal of Starliner’s crewed certification, which includes defining what is needed and acceptable for the next uncrewed mission to reduce risk and confirm readiness for crew missions,” Kent Rominger, former NASA astronaut and member of the panel, said during the meeting.
Still not happening
Starliner’s first crewed test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) went terribly wrong. Five of the spacecraft’s thrusters failed during its rendezvous with the ISS, forcing NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams to perform manual piloting. Starliner also developed five helium leaks, one of which had been identified prior to its launch.
NASA deemed the spacecraft unfit to carry the astronauts back home. As a result, Wilmore and Williams were forced to spend nearly nine months on the ISS before returning back to Earth on board SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft instead.
Boeing has been working on fixing Starliner’s technical issues since the spacecraft returned uncrewed in September 2024. Meanwhile, NASA remains committed to ensuring the commercial spacecraft is fit to transport its astronauts to the ISS.
In February, NASA officials said that teams have made great progress toward fixing the helium leaks and testing the thrusters that malfunctioned during Starliner’s last mission. At the time, NASA seemed optimistic that Starliner would return to flight in April for an uncrewed mission. The agency had also hoped that Starliner could transport a crew of astronauts to the ISS later this year.
Since then, neither the space agency nor Boeing shared any updates on the progress of Starliner.
The saga continues
During Monday’s meeting, there was a higher level of uncertainty as to when Starliner would be ready to fly again. “The Starliner-1 uncrewed mission launch target is under review as work remains to close the final propulsion system issues,” Rominger said during the meeting, according to Spaceflight Now.
While there is no formal launch date for Starliner-1 yet, Susan Helms, chair of the advisory panel, said that mission would take place “in the next year or so.”
Despite the several issues that have marred the Starliner program since the start, NASA won’t give up on it just yet. NASA had originally hoped that Starliner would launch its first operational mission by early 2025. As the Starliner fiasco began unfolding, the agency revised its commercial crew contract with Boeing and reduced the number of Starliner missions to four instead of six.
Now, Boeing is running out of time to deliver on its contract. The ISS is set to retire by 2030, leaving little room for Boeing to fulfill its end of the $4.3 billion deal with NASA. Luckily, NASA has SpaceX to rely on to deliver crew and cargo to the space station, but the agency may have to give up on its initial goal of having two commercial partners carry out its orbital trips.
