Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft that launched NASA’s Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, seen from a window on the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft. Image: NASA.
More than four months after NASA released a report classifying the 2024 Crew Flight Test of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft as a Type A mishap, the timing of the return to flight mission remains up in the air and could be as far as a year away.
During a public meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) on Monday, member Kent Rominger said that NASA was still assessing opportunities to launch the uncrewed Starliner-1 mission. He said the agency and Boeing were still working through post-flight work from the CFT mission and address issues raised in the Program Investigation Team (PIT) report.
“NASA and Boeing continue working toward the goal of Starliner’s crewed certification, which includes defining what is needed and acceptable for the next uncrewed mission to reduce risk and confirm readiness for crew missions,” the former NASA astronaut said. “The Starliner-1 uncrewed mission launch target is under review as work remains to close the final propulsion system issues.”
Spaceflight Now reached out to NASA to ask for its assessment of how soon the Starliner-1 mission could take place. We did not get a response prior to publication.
