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Boeing’s troubled capsule won’t carry astronauts on next space station flight
By MARCIA DUNN - AP Aerospace Writer
Boeing’s troubled capsule won’t carry astronauts on next space station flight
Uncredited - NASA
FILE - In this photo provided by NASA, the Boeing Starliner spacecraft with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard approaches the International Space Station on June 6, 2024.
Uncredited - NASA
FILE - In this photo provided by NASA, the Boeing Starliner spacecraft with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard approaches the International Space Station on June 6, 2024.
Boeing’s troubled capsule won’t carry astronauts on next space station flight
Uncredited - NASA
FILE - In this image from video provided by NASA, the empty Boeing Starliner capsule floats down towards White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico late Sept. 6, 2024, after undocking from the International Space Station.
Uncredited - NASA
FILE - In this image from video provided by NASA, the empty Boeing Starliner capsule floats down towards White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico late Sept. 6, 2024, after undocking from the International Space Station.
Boeing’s troubled capsule won’t carry astronauts on next space station flight
Aubrey Gemignani - NASA
FILE - In this photo provided by NASA, Boeing and NASA teams work around NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test Starliner spacecraft after it landed uncrewed, Sept. 6, 2024, at White Sands, New Mexico, after undocking from the International Space Station.
Aubrey Gemignani - NASA
FILE - In this photo provided by NASA, Boeing and NASA teams work around NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test Starliner spacecraft after it landed uncrewed, Sept. 6, 2024, at White Sands, New Mexico, after undocking from the International Space Station.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Boeing and NASA have agreed to keep astronauts off the company’s next Starliner flight and instead perform a trial run with cargo to prove its safety.
Monday’s announcement comes eight months after the first and only Starliner crew returned to Earth aboard SpaceX after a prolonged mission. Although NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams managed to dock Starliner to the International Space Station in 2024, the capsule had so many problems that NASA ordered it to come back empty, leaving the astronauts stuck there for more than nine months.
Engineers have since been poring over the thruster and other issues that plagued the Starliner capsule. Its next cargo run to the space station will occur no earlier than April, pending additional tests and certification.
Boeing said in a statement that it remains committed to the Starliner program with safety the highest priority.
NASA is also slashing the planned number of Starliner flights, from six to four. If the cargo mission goes well, then that will leave the remaining three Starliner flights for crew exchanges before the space station is decommissioned in 2030.
“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said in a statement.
NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 — three years after the final space shuttle flight — to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost. The Boeing contract was worth $4.2 billion and SpaceX’s $2.6 billion.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its first astronaut mission for NASA in 2020. Its 12th crew liftoff for NASA was this summer.
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