American space the agency ended months of speculation about the next flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, confirming that the vehicle will only carry cargo to the International Space Station.
The space agency said NASA and Boeing currently plan to fly the Starliner-1 mission without a crew earlier than April 2026. NASA added that its launch next April will require completion of stringent testing, certification and mission readiness activities in a statement.
“NASA and Boeing continue to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” Steve Stich, program manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement.
Limiting manned missions
NASA also said it had reached an agreement with Boeing to modify the Commercial Crew contract signed in 2014, which called for six crewed flights to the space station after spacecraft certification. The current plan is to fly Starliner-1 with cargo and then fly up to three additional missions before the space station is retired.
“This modification allows NASA and Boeing to focus on safely certifying the system in 2026, conducting the first Starliner crew rotation once it is ready, and adapting our ongoing flight planning for future Starliner missions based on the station’s operational needs through 2030.” – said Stitch.
Both SpaceX and Boeing were awarded contracts in 2014 to develop crewed spacecraft and fly six operational missions to the space station. SpaceX and its Crew Dragon vehicle completed a successful crewed test flight in mid-2020 and completed its first operational mission by the end of this year. The Crew-11 mission most recently launched in August, and Crew-12 is currently scheduled for February 15.
The Dragon served as a reliable transportation system for NASA as Boeing struggled with development problems.
Starliner’s first uncrewed flight in December 2019 had to be cut low due to software problems. It almost disappeared shortly after launch and before re-entering the atmosphere. He missed his scheduled rendezvous with the space station.
The second mission, Orbital Flight Test 2, took place in May 2022. Due to problems during the previous mission, the spacecraft also flew without a crew. This flight was more successful and reached the space station despite some problems with the thruster.
Orbital Flight Test 3?
NASA then spent more than two years testing Starliner on the ground ahead of its first crewed flight in 2024, which included NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. While approaching the space station, the Starliner spacecraft once again experienced earnest thruster problems. (However, the life-and-death nature of this flight was not revealed until almost a year later.) The Starliner eventually docked with the station, but after heated deliberations, NASA informed Boeing that the vehicle would return to Earth without a crew.
As a result, the Dragon mission launched in slow 2024 with only two astronauts on board instead of the full complement of four. This allowed the secure return of Wilmore and Williams in March 2025.
Since then, it seemed likely that Boeing would have to fly an uncrewed mission to demonstrate the safety of the Starliner’s propulsion system, but that was not confirmed until Monday.
NASA has largely remained noiseless on changes made to the Boeing’s propulsion system and the tests it underwent on the ground. Part of the difficulty in diagnosing thruster problems is that the problems occurred in a part of the spacecraft called the “service module” that is ejected before the craft re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere and returns to Earth.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.