{"id":293083,"date":"2026-02-11T22:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T22:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293083\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T22:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T22:17:07","slug":"nasa-thinks-boeings-starliner-can-fly-in-april-which-is-hilarious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293083\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Thinks Boeing’s Starliner Can Fly in April, Which Is Hilarious"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starliner\u2019s first crewed test flight didn\u2019t exactly go as planned. NASA and Boeing are still troubleshooting the technical issues that left astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore stuck on the International Space Station for nine months<\/a>, and yet there\u2019s a chance the infamous spacecraft might fly another ISS crew later this year.<\/p>\n

Because Starliner failed to achieve full operational certification for crewed flights, NASA modified<\/a> its contract with Boeing in November. The spacecraft\u2019s next mission\u2014Starliner-1\u2014was originally going to be its first operational crewed flight, but now it will carry only cargo to the ISS. If Starliner passes that test, it will then fly up to three crew rotations.<\/p>\n

Starliner-1 is currently slated to launch no earlier than April. Depending on its timing and success, the ISS crew that replaces Crew-12 may fly aboard the Starliner-2 mission, according to Steve Stich, NASA\u2019s commercial crew manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to work through and get through Starliner-1 into the summer timeframe and then see where we\u2019re at,\u201d Stich said<\/a> during a Monday briefing for NASA\u2019s Crew-12 mission. \u201cSo we have some time to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crew-12 is scheduled<\/a> to launch on Friday following multiple weather-related delays. The team of four astronauts will fly to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and spend eight months inside the orbital laboratory before the next rotation\u2014either Crew-13 or Starliner-2\u2014relieves them in the fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have crews in training for both missions,\u201d Stich said.<\/p>\n

Still working out the kinks <\/p>\n

Starliner faced technical issues before, during, and after<\/a> the June 2024 flight that carried Williams and Wilmore to the ISS. The biggest problems were helium leaks and thruster malfunctions, which engineers have been working to address since the spacecraft returned uncrewed<\/a> in September 2024 (its astronauts came home months later aboard a Crew Dragon).<\/p>\n

Stich said teams have made \u201cgreat progress\u201d toward fixing the helium leaks by replacing seals with a version that\u2019s more resistant to nitrogen tetroxide vapor\u2014a highly corrosive liquid oxidizer used in the spacecraft\u2019s propellant system.<\/p>\n

Engineers are also hot-firing thrusters on the crew module of the Starliner-1 spacecraft and analyzing data from testing the thrusters that malfunctioned during the last Starliner mission. They\u2019re even building a model to predict thruster behavior, according to Stich.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we get through that and get to a point where we\u2019re comfortable predicting thruster performance, then we\u2019ll move forward and look toward a launch date,\u201d he said. \u201cBut again, we have a lot of data to go work through to get ready to go fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

A crewed Starliner mission in 2026? Really? <\/p>\n

While this progress is encouraging, it\u2019s entirely likely that Starliner won\u2019t be ready to fly by April, let alone ready to carry astronauts by the fall.<\/p>\n

NASA engineers still have to analyze months of test data and validate fixes before committing to a Starliner-1 launch date. And even if the mission hits its April launch target, achieving crewed flight certification is a whole other issue. Starliner-1 will have to meet<\/a> rigorous safety and performance standards if the next ISS crew is going to fly aboard Starliner-2.<\/p>\n

Given the spacecraft\u2019s complex systems, its troubled history, and that Starliner\u20111 will be the first test of recent repairs, it\u2019s hard to imagine the mission will go perfectly. All eyes will be on this flight to see if Boeing can finally deliver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starliner\u2019s first crewed test flight didn\u2019t exactly go as planned. NASA and Boeing are still troubleshooting the technical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[12495,61,2631,60,91,82,247,140036],"class_list":{"0":"post-293083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-boeing","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-international-space-station","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-nasa","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-starliner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}