{"id":785844,"date":"2026-09-29T01:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T01:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/785844\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T01:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T01:02:11","slug":"nasa-reveals-new-plan-for-boeings-troubled-starliner-spacecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/785844\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA reveals new plan for Boeing\u2019s troubled Starliner spacecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Months after NASA\u2019s leadership issued a scathing indictment of Boeing\u2019s Starliner capsule \u2014 saying the botched 2024 test flight that left two astronauts in space months longer than expected was a disaster in league with Columbia and Challenger \u2014 the space agency has revealed a new road map to get Starliner on track for regular flights.\n <\/p>\n

\n The agency has indicated for some time that Starliner\u2019s next flight would be uncrewed, and NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said Monday that the mission will take place no earlier than December. If that goes well, the earliest Starliner could fly its next crew mission is mid-2028, officials said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBefore crewed operations resume,\u201d Isaacman said, some thrusters require \u201ca design modification.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Starliner will also need a new ride to orbit, as the Atlas rockets that have carried it to space in the past are soon retiring. NASA said Monday the agency is working with Boeing and Atlas provider United Launch Alliance to certify its new Vulcan Centaur rockets for crewed missions as a replacement.\n <\/p>\n

\n NASA is expecting to pay an additional $359 million for Starliner\u2019s upgrades and Vulcan certification, the agency said Monday.\n <\/p>\n

\n Monday\u2019s news conference marked the first substantial update about the Boeing Starliner program in months. And it comes as NASA is looking to fill out a long schedule of missions to the International Space Station, which is slated to be decommissioned in the early 2030s but requires a rotating crew of astronauts to maintain operations while in orbit.\n <\/p>\n

\n Currently, SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon capsule is the only operational US vehicle capable of carrying astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost. NASA was nearing the end of its contract with SpaceX for those flights before purchasing three additional missions for $946 million earlier this month.\n <\/p>\n

\n But SpaceX has made clear it intends to retire its Dragon spacecraft program as it shifts focus to Starship, the gargantuan launch vehicle that aims to send humans to the moon and Mars.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI do not think it\u2019s a secret that SpaceX intends to sunset older platforms like Falcon and Dragon as they concentrate on their next generation capability, Starship,\u201d Isaacman said Monday. \u201cGiven our extensive history with Starliner and the taxpayer investment already made, we believe it represents the fastest path to preserving reliable crewed access to low Earth orbit.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell previously acknowledged that Dragon would be discontinued, saying in 2024<\/a> that she expects Dragon will cease operations sometime in the 2030s.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s not clear whether SpaceX would move to retire Dragon if NASA still needed service flights to the ISS.\n <\/p>\n

\n But when asked about the matter recently, Shotwell was blunt: \u201cBoeing has been paid \u2014 I think probably more than we have been paid \u2014 to develop their human capsule,\u201d she said at the All-In Summit<\/a> earlier this month.\n <\/p>\n

\n SpaceX has been awarded $5.92 billion in NASA contracts for a demo mission and 17 operational flights, while Boeing has been given $4.82 billion with a mandatory order for just four flights, not including the additional $359 million for the Starliner program revealed Monday. (Dana Weigel, manager of NASA\u2019s Low Earth Orbit Program, said Monday the space agency is also reopening the possibility of requiring two additional flights from Boeing under its current contract.)\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re just going to let them have some business,\u201d Shotwell said of Boeing.\n <\/p>\n

\n Starliner has been under development for more than a decade, and problems with the vehicle\u2019s thrusters have plagued its development. Issues cropped up during uncrewed test flights and NASA\u2019s inaugural Boeing Crew Flight Test in June 2024, which included astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.\n <\/p>\n

\n Starliner ran into problems shortly after reaching orbit on that mission. Wilmore and Williams were expected to fly the spacecraft to the ISS and dock for about a week before returning home.\n <\/p>\n

\"Astronauts<\/p>\n

\n Those plans were quickly dashed, however, when the Starliner spacecraft experienced helium leaks and thruster outages en route to the orbiting laboratory. Ultimately, NASA determined the spacecraft was not safe enough to return Williams and Wilmore home, and they became part of the next space station crew rotation, eventually returning home on a SpaceX capsule. The astronauts ultimately spent more than nine months in orbit.\n <\/p>\n

\n Isaacman announced Monday that NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg will command the next crewed Starliner mission. Hoburg mentioned Williams and Wilmore\u2019s ordeal at the news conference, saying the astronauts \u201cconducted themselves with the utmost of professionalism, competence, and humility throughout the mission. They are American heroes, and I am deeply humbled to follow in their footsteps.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Hoburg added that what \u201ckeeps me up at night\u201d is not issues with Starliner\u2019s hardware.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s the underlying pattern,\u201d Hoburg said. \u201cIt was inadequate systems engineering and integration, creating gaps in hardware qualification. In the case of the helium leaks and the crew module (thruster) failures, the unqualified environment was actually on the ground.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s now clear that Starliner\u2019s thrusters were damaged before ever launching, he said, and the issue should have been caught and prevented before the vehicle got to the launchpad.\n <\/p>\n

\n During the Starliner test flight, NASA and Boeing insisted the astronauts\u2019 lives were never in danger. But recently Isaacman, who took over the agency in December, moved to classify the botched test flight as a \u201cType A mishap.\u201d That\u2019s a designation that NASA defines as an incident that results in more than $2 million of damage, the loss of control or destruction of a vehicle, or a loss of life.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Columbia and Challenger Space Shuttle disasters were also classified as \u201cType A\u201d incidents.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Months after NASA\u2019s leadership issued a scathing indictment of Boeing\u2019s Starliner capsule \u2014 saying the botched 2024 test…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-785844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}