Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner

[Orionid]

Start towarowego  Starlinera-1 NET 04.2026.

NASA, Boeing pivot Starliner-1 mission from 4-person astronaut flight to cargo-only
November 24, 2025 Will Robinson-Smith


The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is lifted at the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Image: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA and Boeing also agreed to reduce the number of flights NASA’s is obligated to buy from Boeing from six down to four “with the remaining two available as options.” And with the decision for Starliner-1 to be cargo only, that means NASA may only have three flights with Starliner that will carry its astronauts to the ISS.

If Starliner-1 is a nominal flight, it opens the door for Starliner-2 to become Boeing’s first operational mission to the space station with crew onboard.

“The next commercial flight to the International Space Station without a specific provider assigned is targeted no earlier than October 2026. This flight will handover with NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission, which is targeted to launch in early 2026,” a NASA spokesperson said.

What about the astronauts?

The next crew of a Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is now somewhat of a mystery, at least from a public perspective. Scott Tingle, the NASA astronaut who was named Starliner-1 commander in September 2022 was named as the newest chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office this month.

When Tingle was announced, the agency also said astronaut Mike Fincke would be the Starliner-1 pilot. However, he and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui, another astronaut assigned to Starliner-1, were both tasked to fly as members of the SpaceX Crew-11 mission, which is currently in progress.

Spaceflight Now reached out to the Canadian Space Agency to see learn more about the fate of its astronaut, Joshua Kutryk, who was assigned to fly the Starliner-1 mission as a mission specialist. We’re waiting to hear back.

Eric Berger, Ars Technica’s senior space reporter, reported last week that NASA astronaut Luke Delaney was also in line to train for the Starliner-1 mission at one point, but has been reassigned to the SpaceX Crew-13 mission. (...)

The only other active astronaut who has been publicly confirmed to have trained on the Starliner systems is CFT Pilot Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams. However, given that Starliner-2 would be her fourth mission after already accumulating more than 600 days in space, she may run up against radiation limits for NASA astronauts.

Below are the list of astronauts who have retired from active service who trained to fly on Starliner (either for CFT or Starliner-1):

Josh Cassada
Jeanette Epps
Chris Ferguson
Koichi Wakata (JAXA)
Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore
https://spaceflightnow.com/2025/11/24/nasa-boeing-pivot-starliner-1-mission-from-4-person-astronaut-flight-to-cargo-only/

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/11/nasa-confirms-that-starliners-next-mission-will-be-cargo-only/
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/commercialcrew/2025/11/24/nasa-boeing-modify-commercial-crew-contract/

[kanarkusmaximus]

Miejmy nadzieję, że ten lot towarowy sprosta wyzwaniu!

[perian]

Ale obniżyli wartość kontraktu?

[Orionid]

Ale obniżyli wartość kontraktu?

Mniej zadań to mniejsze finansowanie.

NASA, Boeing Modify Starliner Contract: Fewer Launches, Cargo Only on Starliner-1
By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 24, 2025 3:34 pm ET | Last Updated: November 24, 2025 3:34 pm ET

(...) NASA told SpacePolicyOnline.com today that “Boeing’s current contract value is $3.732 billion with a total potential value of $4.456 billion.”  As of February 2025, Boeing reported about $2 billion in losses due to Starliner since it must absorb the cost overruns. (...)
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-boeing-modify-starliner-contract-fewer-launches-cargo-only-on-starliner-1/


Starliner investigation identifies flawed NASA decision making
by Jeff Foust February 19, 2026


Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft docked to the International Space Station during the Crew Flight Test mission. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — NASA has classified the flawed Starliner crewed test flight in 2024 as its most serious level of mishap, with the agency’s leadership citing shortfalls in how officials oversaw the program.

NASA released Feb. 19 an independent report into the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, which suffered thruster failures during the spacecraft’s approach to the International Space Station. The incident led NASA to return the spacecraft uncrewed, with the two astronauts who launched on Starliner remaining on the ISS for more than eight months before coming home on a Crew Dragon.

The report recommended that NASA classify the incident as a “Type A” mishap, citing both the technical issues with the flight as well as organizational problems.

“Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at a press conference to discuss the report’s findings. “It’s decision-making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight.”

That decision-making and leadership, he said, allowed a spacecraft with thruster problems that occurred on previous uncrewed test flights to launch again with astronauts on board. That included the second uncrewed flight, OFT-2 in 2022, that suffered several thruster failures.

“The investigations often stopped short of the proximate or the direct cause, treated it with a fix, or accepted the issue as an unexplained anomaly,” he said of reviews after OFT-2. “In some cases, the proximate cause diagnosis itself was incorrect due to insufficient rigor in following the data to its logical conclusion.”

There was also poor decision-making after the thruster failures on the CFT mission. The spacecraft was able to safely dock with the station but NASA then spent weeks studying the problem. “The astronauts did remain safely aboard the International Space Station while they were advocating for data, for more testing and for leadership engagement necessary to complete their mission safely,” Isaacman said.

“Now on orbit, disagreements over crew return options deteriorated into unprofessional conduct” among program officials, he said, describing “an environment where advocacy tied to the Starliner program viability persisted alongside insufficient senior NASA leadership engagement to refocus teams on safety and mission outcomes.”

That persisted after the safe return of the Starliner astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, with NASA’s initial decision not to declare the mission a mishap. “Concern for the Starliner program’s reputation influenced that decision,” Isaacman said. “The record is now being corrected. Today, we formally designate this event a Type A mishap to ensure lessons are fully captured for future missions.”

A Type A mishap requires an independent investigation, although the agency concluded that the investigation already commissioned served that purpose. Such a mishap is defined as one with a cost of more than $2 million. The losses of the shuttles Challenger and Columbia are defined as Type A mishaps, but Isaacman noted that a recent hard landing by a NASA WB-57 aircraft because of a landing gear failure, which did not injure the pilots on board, also is classified as a Type A mishap.

Lessons for Starliner and Artemis

Before the release of the report and the classification of the CFT mission as a Type A mishap, NASA had been working towards an uncrewed launch of Starliner to the ISS as soon as this April. If successful, a crewed mission would follow as soon as late this year. NASA officials confirmed those plans at a Feb. 9 briefing.

Isaacman indicated there are no immediate changes to those plans, although engineers have yet to reach a technical root cause for the thruster failures.

“Right now, our focus here at NASA is working alongside Boeing again to understand the technical challenges that have caused these service module and crew module thruster issues,” he said, then implement fixes and other recommendations from the report.

“Now, if that happens to line up in April, then so be it. And if we can follow that on with crewed missions, that’s fantastic as well,” he said. “But we are not going to fly again, crew or uncrewed, until it’s ready.”

He said there would be changes within NASA as well. “Programmatic advocacy exceeded reasonable bounds and placed the mission, the crew and America’s space program at risk in ways that were not fully understood at the time decisions were being contemplate,” he stated.

“This created a culture of mistrust that can never happen again, and there will be leadership accountability,” he added, but declined to specify if personnel would be fired or reassigned.

That “programmatic advocacy” was linked to concerns by some within the agency that the overall commercial crew program could only be successful if there were two providers. Isaacman said he still believed Starliner could operate and meet what he described as “near endless demand” for cargo and crew access to low Earth orbit that will continue even after the ISS is retired.

“We are committed to helping Boeing work through this problem, to remediate the technical challenges,” he said, noting that he had no indication Boeing would cancel Starliner. “I fully anticipate Boeing will be there.”

Boeing reiterated its commitment to Starliner in a brief statement. “In the 18 months since our test flight, Boeing has made substantial progress on corrective actions for technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team that directly align with the findings in the report,” the company stated. “We’re working closely with NASA to ensure readiness for future Starliner missions and remain committed to NASA’s vision for two commercial crew providers.”

The briefing took place while NASA was performing a second wet dress rehearsal for the Artemis 2 mission, whose Space Launch System has Boeing as the prime contractor. Isaacman said he was not concerned any technical or organizational problems with Starliner would affect SLS.

“These are two very different contracting approaches,” he said, noting SLS follows a more conventional approach with much greater NASA oversight and control than the commercial crew program, which uses a services contract.

“This is now the most important human spaceflight mission in more than a half-century,” he said of Artemis 2. He noted he has sent “second and third and fourth sets of eyes” to review mission preparations.

The timing of the release of the report with the Artemis 2 countdown test was a coincidence, he said, but is a valuable reminder.

“It is to make sure we are we are sending the right message within the workforce of NASA that we have to make the right decisions in this circumstance. Leadership has to be appropriately applied, because the situation we found ourselves in with Starliner with CFT could happen anywhere across the organization,” he said. “The approach we took is not compatible with human spaceflight, and we cannot permit it to continue.”
https://spacenews.com/starliner-investigation-identifies-flawed-nasa-decision-making/

NASA chief classifies Starliner flight as “Type A” mishap, says agency made mistakes
Eric Berger – 19 lut 2026 22:59

“The most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware.”

(...) As part of the announcement, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman sent an agency-wide letter that recognized the shortcomings of both Starliner’s developer, Boeing, as well as the space agency itself. Starliner flew under the auspices of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, in which the agency procures astronaut transportation services to the International Space Station.

“We are taking ownership of our shortcomings,” Isaacman said.

The letter and a subsequent news conference on Thursday afternoon were remarkable for the amount of accountability taken by NASA. Moreover, at Isaacman’s direction, the space agency released an internal report, comprising 311 pages, that details findings from the Program Investigation Team that looked into the Starliner flight. (...)
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/nasa-chief-classifies-starliner-flight-as-type-a-mishap-says-agency-made-mistakes/

[Orionid]

W obecnej sytuacji formowanie załóg dla Starlinera wiąże się z ryzykiem nie odbycia lotu tym pojazdem.

Space Shuttle Almanac @ShuttleAlmanac 4:49 AM · Jul 2, 2026
NASA just released its Starliner OIG report today... the planning schedule within this document has already been delayed by a minimum further 6 months. They wont launch any Starliners this year.

https://x.com/ShuttleAlmanac/status/2072512952574656916

Report links Starliner problems to overconfidence and unrealistic schedules
by Jeff Foust July 1, 2026


Boeing's Starliner undocks from the International Space Station at the conclusion of the Crew Flight Test mission. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — A new report links the long-running technical problems with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle to a combination of overconfidence, unrealistic schedules and NASA’s lack of insight into the vehicle.

The report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General, released June 30, adds to the uncertainty about when Starliner will be approved for crewed missions to the International Space Station despite optimism from Boeing’s chief executive.

Starliner has not flown since its Crew Flight Test, or CFT, mission two years ago, which suffered thruster malfunctions and other issues that led NASA to return the spacecraft to Earth uncrewed. The NASA astronauts who flew on Starliner to the ISS remained there until March 2025, returning on a Crew Dragon.

The OIG report said the problems with that mission, as well as two previous uncrewed test flights, had three underlying causes.

“NASA was overconfident in Boeing’s design and potential success based on the provider’s use of heritage systems and its long-standing spaceflight experience,” the report stated, noting that NASA allowed Boeing to skip integrated testing of those systems.

“Second, this overconfidence led to Boeing establishing, and NASA accepting, an unrealistic launch and flight-test schedule,” the report said. NASA’s commercial crew program “consistently operated as if Starliner’s CFT mission was only 6 months away” starting in May 2021, although the mission did not ultimately launch until June 2024. Those schedules, the report argued, affected work on vehicle systems and testing.

OIG said the third factor was that NASA lacked access to Starliner flight simulator data. Access to the data was limited by the contract between NASA and Boeing, but OIG said NASA did not take advantage of the data that was available before the CFT mission, including simulation runs that resulted in the loss of vehicle or crew.

“The CFT crew noted this was unlike the shuttle era, when simulation failures resulted in full and open investigations, with reporting to its crews,” the report stated.

Exacerbating those issues is a lack of personnel. The report said that the commercial crew program office lost 21% of its personnel to attrition and reorganizations as of April 2025, and the office was uncertain whether it would be able to continue to access staff in other parts of the agency that it had relied on to help review the safety of vehicles.

OIG noted NASA has taken action to address those issues but criticized the agency for waiting until February, more than a year and a half after the launch of CFT, to formally classify it as a “Type A” mishap. That came only after an independent review recommended that designation, citing technical and organizational problems.

“In our judgment, the 21-month delay in failing to classify the CFT mission as a Type A mishap continues to delay resolution of Starliner issues that have persisted across three flight tests since 2019, further compounding costly delays in obtaining certification and limiting NASA’s options for crew transportation,” the report stated.

Uncertainty versus optimism

The report highlights the uncertainty about when Starliner will fly again and when, or even if, it will be certified for ISS crew rotation missions, given the pending retirement of the ISS in 2030.

“In the near term, given the continued challenges, we have concerns that all three of Boeing’s authorized flights will not be flown by 2030 when NASA plans to decommission the station,” the report stated, referring to the three crewed Starliner flights Boeing is under contract to perform.

Those will come after Starliner-1, originally planned as a crewed flight but converted into a cargo-only mission last year. That mission has not been scheduled, and NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said at a June 22 meeting that Starliner-1 would fly “in the next year or so” without offering a more specific timetable.

That uncertainty contrasts with the optimism Boeing Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg offered about Starliner in an interview with Aviation Week published June 25.

“We’ve made most of the corrective actions that came out of the prior flight test,” he said. “It is still our plan to have additional launches. NASA is working through that schedule. It looks like there might be one launch this year instead of two.”

Early this year, NASA officials left open the possibility of a crewed Starliner mission late this year. That assumed Starliner-1 would make its uncrewed flight as soon as April, allowing the vehicle to be certified for crew in the summer. The release of the independent report in February made it clear that schedule would not hold.

“While NASA officials have noted fall 2026 as the likely time frame for Starliner’s certification, we found this to be unrealistic given the current delays for the Starliner-1 launch and lack of clarity on the progress this uncrewed cargo flight will accomplish on Starliner’s certification plan,” the OIG report stated, concluding certification would likely slip to 2027.

“We think we’ve got a good handle on the thruster problems and corrective actions to fix them,” Ortberg said in the interview, noting he felt more confident about the future of Starliner than a year ago. “We’ve been through exhaustive testing. So I’m more confident that we’ve got our arms around what needs to be done to have a successful program.”

Both the OIG report and the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel stated that some of the most serious problems from the CFT mission, such as thruster failures and heating of the “doghouses” on the Starliner service module that house the thrusters, had not been resolved.

“A Starliner-1 launch date is not currently scheduled, as NASA continues to evaluate launch opportunities,” the OIG report stated. “However, test results and analysis related to helium leaks and propulsion systems failures have not yet been completed as of March 2026, and NASA is uncertain as to when this testing will be completed or human-rating certification for the Starliner will be obtained.”
https://spacenews.com/report-links-starliner-problems-to-overconfidence-and-unrealistic-schedules/

NASA, Boeing committed to Starliner-1 launch despite unclear timeline
June 23, 2026 Will Robinson-Smith

More than four months after NASA released a report classifying the 2024 Crew Flight Test of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft as a Type A mishap, the timing of the return to flight mission remains up in the air and could be as far as a year away. (...)
https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/06/23/nasa-boeing-committed-to-starliner-1-launch-despite-unclear-timeline/

4 miliardy dolarów, 12 lat i jeden lot. Audyt NASA rozlicza Starlinera
Astrofaza  5208 wyświetleń  05.07.2026


NASA still assessing Starliner-1 flight opportunities
by Jeff Foust July 31, 2026


Boeing's Starliner undocks from the International Space Station at the conclusion of the Crew Flight Test mission. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — A NASA official says that work with Boeing on the company’s CST-100 Starliner vehicle is making “good progress” but declined to offer a date when the spacecraft could fly again.

During a July 30 briefing on upcoming spacewalks at the International Space Station, Bill Spetch, deputy manager of NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Program, said NASA was working “very closely” with Boeing to address propulsion system issues with Starliner on a crewed test flight two years ago. Starliner has not flown since that mission.

Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s president and chief executive, said on a July 28 earnings call that work on Starliner was going well and suggested the main issue was scheduling the Starliner-1 mission, a cargo-only flight that will effectively serve as another test flight for the spacecraft.

“We’ve got to work with NASA to align on when the launches are going to be, both the crewed and uncrewed launches, going forward,” he said in the call. Boeing separately stated in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the company was planning Starliner-1 for no earlier than the fourth quarter of this year.

Starliner-1, though, was absent from a list of missions planned for a “busy fall and winter” for the ISS that Spetch outlined at the briefing. That includes the next crew rotation mission, SpaceX’s Crew-13, scheduled for launch in mid-September, followed later in the fall by a cargo mission, SpaceX’s CRS-35, and Northrop Grumman’s NG-25 Cygnus cargo spacecraft near the end of the year.

“We continue to work very closely with Boeing on the Starliner upgrades,” Spetch said later in the briefing when asked about Starliner. “I would say the teams are working really well together to make good progress and that we will fly it when it’s ready to go and when we have a spot for it on ISS.”

A successful Starliner-1 mission by the end of the year would open the door for flying the spacecraft’s first long-duration crew rotation mission in the latter half of 2027. Last November, Boeing’s original contract for six missions, including Starliner-1, was reduced to four. With NASA still working toward a 2030 retirement of the ISS, time is running out to fly those four missions.

The NASA comments about Starliner took place during a briefing to discuss three spacewalks planned outside the ISS in August. The first, scheduled for Aug. 6, will be conducted by NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Anil Menon. They will install equipment to prepare for the later installation of a solar array.

A second spacewalk on Aug. 13 will replace a high-gain antenna on the station. The third, planned for Aug. 25, involves work to connect power and data cables as well as replace a navigation aid used for spacecraft docking on the forward port of the Harmony module.

NASA has not announced the astronauts who will perform the second and third spacewalks, but a video shown at the briefing identified the astronauts doing the third spacewalk as Meir and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot.

Spetch said that, despite the video, NASA has not determined who will perform that spacewalk. “We like to keep an eye on what happens over the course of the EVAs, so we don’t have to jostle things back and forth,” he said.

Separately, NASA announced July 30 that it assigned Deniz Burnham to go to the ISS next year on the Soyuz MS-30 mission, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin and Konstantin Borisov. That mission is scheduled for launch in March and will remain there for about seven months.

This will be the first flight for Burnham, selected as part of the 2021 astronaut class. She had trained as the backup for Menon, who launched to the station earlier this month on Soyuz MS-29.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-still-assessing-starliner-1-flight-opportunities/

Bezzałogowa misja certyfikacyjna Starliner-1 ma szansę na lot w 12.2026/01.2027.
Wg administratora NASA możliwy jest lot astronautów na pokładzie Starliner-2 do 2028.
Boeing będzie musiał zmodyfikować system sterowania orientacją w module serwisowym i wymienić wszystkie zawory. Zmiany obejmą także spadochrony.
Celem tych działań jest zwiększenie bezpieczeństwa statku kosmicznego.
NASA nadal zachowuje możliwość realizacji do sześciu misji statku Starliner na ISS.

https://x.com/Kosmo_Michal/status/2104828320672018925

NASA, Boeing Share Update on Commercial Starliner Development Plans
Gerelle Q. Dodson Sep 28, 2026 RELEASE 26-079 NASA Headquarters

(...) “We are starting with an uncrewed Starliner-1 mission to the International Space Station to validate the improvements made to the spacecraft and gather the flight data we need,” said Isaacman. “From there, we will use what we learn, continue implementing the corrective actions identified by our Program Investigation Team, and complete the testing and certification required for crewed flight. Our current plan is to return astronauts on Starliner-2 by 2028.”

NASA’s commercial crew efforts aim to preserve a U.S. crew transportation capability for ensuring continued access to space. The work is challenging, however, it is essential for responsibly concluding space station operations, transitioning to commercial space stations, and expanding commercial access.

In February, NASA released findings from the agency’s Program Investigation Team outlining the programmatic and technical issues resulting in an uncrewed return of the Starliner during its first crewed flight in 2024. In total, the investigation identified 61 recommendations to NASA to ensure that future missions meet the high standards required for human spaceflight.

The report specifically identified issues with Starliner’s service module reaction control thrusters operating outside of their engineering qualification, which resulted in the loss of control experienced during its Crew Flight Test. Through significant ground testing and analysis, NASA and Boeing learned the service module thruster performance issues resulted from a combination of factors, including the thermal environment and features inherent in its design.

Based on the findings, Boeing has made thermal modifications to the spacecraft’s service module which NASA will evaluate for improved performance on Starliner-1. NASA and Boeing also have jointly decided to implement an additional thruster valve design modification in support of spacecraft certification and future crewed flights.

The uncrewed Starliner-1 has the potential to fly in December of this year or January 2027. It will serve as an engineering evaluation mission to verify improved thermal environments, obtain necessary performance data for system qualification, and identify residual risk ahead of crewed missions. (...)
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-boeing-share-update-on-commercial-starliner-development-plans/

Boeing “incredibly excited” to serve as nation’s only astronaut transportation
Eric Berger – Sep 29, 2026 00:24

“We couldn’t provide detailed pricing to the CLD suppliers.”

(...) During the news conference, Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program, said the space agency would pay $359 million to Boeing to help the company complete a rebuild of the reaction control system thrusters that have overheated in flight, as well as certify United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket for human missions.

NASA also said it would exercise options to order two additional crewed missions on Starliner, bringing its total spaceflights on the vehicle to six.

Presently, NASA has manifested an uncrewed demonstration flight on the spacecraft, Starliner-1, which could launch in December 2026 or January 2027. It also has three crewed missions already on contract, the first of which, Starliner-2, could fly in mid-2028. NASA said Monday that veteran astronaut Woody Hoburg would command that mission.

Facing a difficult decision

With the retirement of Dragon likely by or before 2030, NASA faced a difficult decision. As it contemplates a future in low-Earth orbit, the space agency is considering extending the International Space Station’s lifetime to 2032. It is also supporting the development of private space stations, known as CLDs (commercial LEO destinations). The space agency needed some way to get its astronauts there. (...)
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/09/boeing-incredibly-excited-to-serve-as-nations-only-astronaut-transportation/

NASA plans unpiloted Starliner test flight at end of year
September 29, 2026 William Harwood
https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/09/29/nasa-plans-unpiloted-starliner-test-flight-at-end-of-year/

[mss]

Krótkie podsumowanie tematu w Aviation Week & Space Technology:

https://aviationweek.com/space/space-exploration/boeing-nasa-eye-starliner-uncrewed-return-flight-december

Boeing, NASA Eye Starliner Uncrewed Return To Flight In December
Irene Klotz September 28, 2026

CAPE CANAVERAL—More than two years after the troubled crewed flight test of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner space taxi, NASA and Boeing aim to return the spacecraft to flight with an uncrewed cargo run to the International Space Station (ISS) in late December or January.

That flight test—the fourth in a series that began in December 2019—would be followed by what NASA hopes will be an operational ISS crew-rotation mission in 2028. Astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg, a veteran of one long-duration ISS mission, was assigned to command that flight, known as Starliner 2, NASA Administrator Jared Issacman told reporters on Sept. 28.

NASA also is looking to reinstate two Starliner missions suspended from Boeing’s 2014 Commercial Crew program contract following the June-September 2024 Crew Flight Test (CFT) with NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams.

The CFT mission, originally slated to last one-two weeks, was repeatedly extended while NASA and Boeing assessed issues with the spacecraft’s propulsion system. Ultimately, NASA opted to bring Starliner back to Earth without Wilmore and Williams due to safety concerns. The astronauts were transferred to the resident ISS staff and served another six months in orbit.

In February 2026 NASA retroactively classified the Starliner CFT as a Type A mishap, a failure category for missions that typically result in loss of crew or vehicle.

A trio of technical issues surfaced during CFT, including corroded valves in the propulsion system, a problem that also arose ahead of Starliner’s second Orbital Flight Test in 2021.

“It took the team more extensive analysis on the root cause of why we saw the corrosion,” John Mulholland, vice president and program manager for Boeing’s Commercial Crew program, told Aviation Week. “It’s been a renewed focus for the company to make sure safety is first.”

During Starliner’s approach to the ISS on June 6, 2024, for the CFT flight, five of the spacecraft’s eight aft-facing reaction control system thrusters failed. Wilmore took manual control after the second shutdown and NASA decided to allow the docking despite the degraded conditions. Four more thrusters failed prior to docking, resulting in a loss of 6-deg.-of-freedom attitude control, later considered a very risky situation.

The spacecraft also experienced helium leaks and other issues.

Several fixes and operational changes are being implemented ahead of the uncrewed Starliner 1 mission, slated for December 2026-January 2027, and more remediations are planned before Starliner 2 is cleared for a launch targeted for 2028. The remediations include replacement of all the crew module propulsion system valves and new operating procedures to further mitigate against possible corrosion.

For the Starliner 1 mission, Boeing is implementing a system of thermal shunts and barriers to prevent the thrusters from overheating—another issue that contributed to problems during the CFT mission.

NASA said it is boosting Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program contract by $359 million to help offset additional expenses of preparing Starliner to return to flight and to begin certification for Starliner to fly on United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rockets. Boeing has contracts to fly Starliners on ULA’s final six Atlas V boosters and is looking to switch to Vulcan after those missions.

Mulholland declined to say how much more it will cost Boeing to evolve Starliner into an operational system. NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 for contracts worth $6.8 billion at the time to develop commercial space taxis and provide flight services for six ISS crew-rotation missions. Since Starliner’s troubled December 2019 uncrewed debut, technical delays and fixed-price contract overruns have cost Boeing a reported $2 billion extra.

SpaceX is preparing to launch its 14th ISS crew on Oct. 1, and also has flown seven private orbital missions on its Dragon spacecraft.