Boeing's Starliner Given New Lease on Life by NASA

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has been plagued by setbacks on its three test flights to date, but NASA is giving it another chance. The uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station (ISS), called Starliner-1, will launch in December or January next year, and if successful, a crewed mission, Starliner-2, will follow in 2028.

On its first two flights, Starliner experienced problems with its timing system and lost contact with the ISS. The third flight, Crew Flight Test (CFT), carried astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS, but suffered helium leaks and thruster failures.

A joint Boeing-NASA team has been working on addressing these issues, including changing the material of the seal that caused helium leaks and implementing procedures to flush out residual propellant. The Starliner-1 flight will test some of these changes, but others, such as the service module thruster valve design modification, will be implemented for the Starliner-2 mission.

NASA has awarded Boeing $359 million to complete these upgrades and certify the Vulcan Centaur rocket for crewed missions. The agency is also giving SpaceX a contract worth $946 million to fly three additional ISS astronaut missions using its Crew Dragon spacecraft.