NASA and Boeing will try again with the troubled Starliner spacecraft, according to a statement issued by the U.S. space agency on Monday.
The Starliner has been years in development, and transported its first crew to the International Space Station (ISS) last year. But the mission was beset with problems, leaving two NASA astronauts — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — stuck at the orbital outpost for nearly nine months when they were only supposed to have stayed there for a matter of days.
Now, more than a year after the empty Starliner returned to Earth, and eight months after the crew returned home aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, NASA has announced a modified contract with Boeing that slightly reduces the number of targeted crewed flights using the spacecraft.
The next Starliner flight — called Starliner-1 — will not carry any crew, and will instead transport cargo to the space station. It will also act as a test flight to evaluate the safety of the capsule for future astronaut flights to the ISS following upgrades made to the vehicle following last year’s challenging mission.
NASA and Boeing are targeting no earlier than April 2026 for the Starliner-1 flight. If that flight passes off without incident and the capsule’s critical systems are deemed to be in proper working order, the Starliner will fly up to three crew rotations to the ISS, the first of which could also take place in 2026.
“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a post on NASA’s website on Monday. “This modification allows NASA and Boeing to focus on safely certifying the system in 2026, execute Starliner’s first crew rotation when ready, and align our ongoing flight planning for future Starliner missions based on station’s operational needs through 2030.”
The Boeing Starliner has had a difficult history, marked by multiple technical issues and delays.
Its inaugural uncrewed test flight in 2019 suffered a slew of software errors that prevented it from reaching the ISS, and resulted in years of work in a bid to put things right.
But the one and only crewed mission, which launched last year with Wilmore and Williams, also experienced issues that included valve malfunctions, thruster failures, and helium leaks. Despite efforts to put things right in orbit, NASA officials decided to bring the Starliner home empty over concerns that it wasn’t safe enough for a crewed trip.
The decision left Wilmore and Williams on the space station for nearly nine months when they’d expected to be there for a mere eight days.
Despite all the challenges, NASA and Boeing have stuck by the Starliner and are now giving it another chance in what will be closely watched mission.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.