NASA Clears Boeing’s Starliner From 2025 Schedule

[ { "name": "Related Stories / Support Us Combo", "component": "11591218", "insertPoint": "4", "requiredCountToDisplay": "4" },{ "name": "Air - Billboard - Inline Content", "component": "11591214", "insertPoint": "2/3", "requiredCountToDisplay": "7" },{ "name": "R1 - Beta - Mobile Only", "component": "12287027", "insertPoint": "8", "requiredCountToDisplay": "8" },{ "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size 2", "component": "11591215", "insertPoint": "12", "requiredCountToDisplay": "12" },{ "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size 2", "component": "11591215", "insertPoint": "4th", "startingPoint": "16", "requiredCountToDisplay": "12" } ] In a move that should surprise no one, the folks at NASA officially pulled Boeing's Starliner off of the federal space agency's 2025 lineup this week. That's right, In a release that was billed simply as an update on the commercial space program, NASA tucked in that the next two missions toting astronauts to the International Space Station, Crew-10, targeted for no earlier than February, and Crew-11, targeted for no earlier than July, will now be aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon. It must be another bitter pill for Starliner's team to swallow. Before Starliner finally embarked on the debacle that was its first crewed test flight back in June, the plan had been to use the spacecraft for at least one of these early 2025 flights. But then, of course, when Starliner arrived at the ISS, only five of its 28 thrusters were working. Then the small helium leaks that engineers that engineers had discovered before the launch multiplied. And then, after Captain Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams saw their departure date delayed by days and then weeks, NASA ultimately decided Starliner's crew would be returning aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft instead next February. Starliner departed the ISS in early September, pulling off an uneventful landing in White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, without occupants and without having garnered the flight certification required for it to be used for NASA missions. Since then, NASA officials have stayed quiet about what all of this means for the future of Boeing's commercial crew spacecraft. Until this discrete schedule update, which was issued on Tuesday, that is. The space agency didn't address when – or if – the Boeing Starliner will be put into rotation, only noting in the release "the timing and configuration of Starliner's next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing's path to system certification is established." Questioned about this move the following day at the International Astronautical Congress in Milan, NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy was more direct. "It's under data review," Melroy said, according to SpaceNews. "We need to have a decision: Do we need another test flight?" All things considered, some might be wondering if NASA will ultimately even opt to keep going with Starliner, especially considering the myriad problems Boeing itself is facing. After all, there's also SpaceX, the other commercial crew company contracted with the federal space agency, right? It's true that Elon Musk's company just scored yet another historic launch last Sunday with its Super Heavy uncrewed launch from the South Texas Coast, which saw the 23-story-tall Super Heavy Booster descending back to its launchpad where it was caught by an enormous pair of robotic arms. But if NASA were to just go with SpaceX, that would leave its commercial crew program with exactly one vendor to get its astronauts to and from space, and the company CEO is the same guy who cut off Starlink during the Ukrainian offensive, according to a European Commission report issued last year, and got into a fight with the Brazilian government over disinformation on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter. NASA relying solely on SpaceX? What could possibly go wrong? All of this leaves NASA officials in a tricky situation here, one that we won't likely see resolved for a while. Sure, Starliner has been running behind schedule and overbudget for years at this point and the spacecraft itself has been plagued by malfunctions, mistakes and delays, as we've previously noted. But they do have a spacecraft that might be certifiable soon. Meanwhile, Wilmore and Williams are still slated to come home in February—aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.