Boeing’s Starliner has only been completed by half of its previous crew, but remains in Fixit mode, as SpaceX prepares to send its 19th Dragon spacecraft inside the ship.
According to NASA, the next launch is scheduled for by 2026 and may not be one with the crew.
At a press conference for the launch of the SpaceX Crew-11 earlier this month, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich has backed up Starliner, maintaining the second duties of NASA’s second commercial launch provider, and updating the second progress of the second commercial launch provider, which is supposed to bring astronauts into and out of the International Space Station.
“We’re working towards a Starliner flight early next year,” he said. “And ultimately, our goal is to enter a crew rotation flight with Starliner, which will start earlier than the second spinning slot at the end of next year.”
The problem was when Starliner was launched in a Crew Flight Test (CFT) from Cape Canaveral on June 5, 2024, and developed several helium leaks and thruster failures in the propulsion system before docking to the space station the following day. What was thought to be an eight-day stay in the summer ended up in the summer as NASA ultimately chose to fly the Starliner home without a crew member in September.
Although it landed safely, Boeing and NASA have analyzed the source of the issue and, for now, have chosen to find new sealant materials to address the helium leak and explore some hardware changes to address what was determined to be overheated thrusters.
Stich said the tests are being conducted in multiple locations across the country, but a lot of work is being done at the White Sands Test facility in New Mexico. That includes putting what he called a kennel in the test stand. This is the casing in which individual thrusters are included in the spacecraft. Kennels are enclosures that are ultimately responsible for retaining the heat generated by their use.
“The test is scheduled to begin at the end of next month, so we have made a lot of progress and understand the thermal performance,” he said. “These build informed thermal modeling.”
He also said Boeing is adding hardware to pull heat away from the thruster and a thermal barrier to prevent heat from returning to the kennel.
“So, it shows a lot of progress compared to the original design of the thruster,” he said.
The next flight will not be until 2026, but Stitch said there has been no decision yet on whether it is just a freight assignment with the crew.
“We’re still looking at it, whether it’s a cargo flight or not. I think there are many benefits to flying cargo flights first. If you really look at the history of Starliner and both dragons, I think the dragons benefited a lot from having an early flight before the crew contract,” he said.
But ultimately it depends on the results of the test.
“What we’re really looking at is can we test all the changes we’re making to the Dogers, especially on the ground? Do you want to verify what’s in flight first? “It’s still right in front of us.”
Meanwhile, SpaceX continues to roll along with Crew-11 launch targeting as early as July 31st for a lift-off from Kennedy Space Center launch pad 39-A. The first Dragon Endeavor of the first fleet of five Crew Dragons flying alongside humans in May 2020 is making its fifth release. The passengers are NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Finke, and Jakusa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronauts Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.
They are to ease the crew 10 on the Dragon Endurance, accompanies that have been attached to the space station since their arrival in March. SpaceX’s Demo-2 test mission in 2020 marked the first launch of NASA astronauts from US soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program nine years ago. In the interim, NASA relied on Russian Soyuz launches to lead astronauts into space, reducing the number of stations.
SpaceX tracked the test flights in the second half of 2020 on its first operational mission, Crew-1, followed by a 10-man crew rotation mission and seven private launches of the crew dragon. The four members of Crew-11 bring the total number of humans flying on SpaceX to 74 in just five years.
This includes Butch Wilmore and Snie Williams, a pair of NASA astronauts who flew to the station on a Starliner test flight last summer, but eventually returned to the crew dragon when Nasa decided that the Starliner issue with helium leaks and thruster failures was too dangerous.
Starliner was obsessed with the space station for three months and returned to Earth without a crew member, but Williams and Wilmore didn’t return home until March 2025.
The need to shuffle the pair to the crew dragons for the flight home meant removing the former commander of Crew 9 along with other NASA astronauts to leave the room for the Starliner duo. That commander is Cardman and is now reassigned as Crew 11 Commander.
Finke was also tapped to fly what was supposed to be the first spinning flight of Starliner-1, a starliner, and was a backup for Williams and Wilmore in CFT, but Japan’s Yui was also trained to fly with Starliner.
However, due to a delay in Starliner-1 until late 2026, the pair joined Cardman on the crew 11 roster.
NASA originally ordered six operational missions from Boeing, worth $4.6 billion, from SpaceX for $2.6 billion. With Starliner Delays, SpaceX is currently pursuing 14 operational mission contracts and is about to fly to 11th place, but Boeing has yet to meet the first.
With only two flights a year, NASA will need enough staff at that station until 2030, and will then be safely abolished and returned to burn out in the atmosphere of the earth. In the meantime, NASA is considering certifying missions for up to eight months, rather than the usual six. This will further reduce the number of flights required until 2030.
“It’s really too early to guess how many flights fly with each provider, SpaceX and Boeing, but we’re looking at the life of the station and seeing it,” he said.
Stich said the contract mission could ripple out to support new commercial space stations that are being worked on by companies like Axiom Space and Blue Origin, which should be operating before 2030.
“We are also heading towards both the cargo and crew at commercial Leo (low Earth orbit) and commercial Leo destinations, as we preserve our transport capacity,” he said. “Now we are taking one step at a time, and the first step ahead of us is Crew 11.”
