NASA reveals new plan for Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft and commander of future mission

Months after NASA’s leadership issued a scathing indictment of Boeing’s Starliner capsule — saying the botched 2024 test flight that left two astronauts in space months longer than expected was a disaster in league with Columbia and Challenger — the space agency has revealed a new road map to get Starliner on track for regular flights.

The agency has indicated for some time that Starliner’s next flight would be uncrewed, and NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said Monday that the mission will take place no earlier than December. If that goes well, the earliest Starliner could fly its next crew mission is mid-2028, officials said.

“ Before crewed operations resume,” Isaacman said, some thrusters require “a design modification.”

Starliner will also need a new ride to orbit, as the Atlas rockets that have carried it to space in the past are soon retiring. NASA said Monday the agency is working with Boeing and Atlas provider United Launch Alliance to certify its new Vulcan Centaur rockets for crewed missions as a replacement.

NASA is expecting to pay an additional $359 million for Starliner’s upgrades and Vulcan certification, the agency said Monday.

Monday’s news conference marked the first substantial update about the Boeing Starliner program in months. And it comes as NASA is looking to fill out a long schedule of missions to the International Space Station, which is slated to be decommissioned in the early 2030s but requires a rotating crew of astronauts to maintain operations while in orbit.

Currently, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule is the only operational US vehicle capable of carrying astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost. NASA was nearing the end of its contract with SpaceX for those flights before purchasing three additional missions for $946 million earlier this month.

But SpaceX has made clear it intends to retire its Dragon spacecraft program as it shifts focus to Starship, the gargantuan launch vehicle that aims to send humans to the moon and Mars.

“I do not think it’s a secret that SpaceX intends to sunset older platforms like Falcon and Dragon as they concentrate on their next generation capability, Starship,” Isaacman said Monday. “Given our extensive history with Starliner and the taxpayer investment already made, we believe it represents the fastest path to preserving reliable crewed access to low Earth orbit.”

SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell previously acknowledged that Dragon would be discontinued, saying in 2024 that she expects Dragon will cease operations sometime in the 2030s.

It’s not clear whether SpaceX would move to retire Dragon if NASA still needed service flights to the ISS.

But when asked about the matter recently, Shotwell was blunt: “Boeing has been paid — I think probably more than we have been paid — to develop their human capsule,” she said at the All-In Summit earlier this month.

SpaceX has been awarded $5.92 billion in NASA contracts for a demo mission and 17 operational flights, while Boeing has been given $4.82 billion with a mandatory order for just four flights, not including the additional $359 million for the Starliner program revealed Monday. (Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program, said Monday the space agency is also reopening the possibility of requiring two additional flights from Boeing under its current contract.)

“We’re just going to let them have some business,” Shotwell said of Boeing.

Starliner has been under development for more than a decade, and problems with the vehicle’s thrusters have plagued its development. Issues cropped up during uncrewed test flights and NASA’s inaugural Boeing Crew Flight Test in June 2024, which included astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

Starliner ran into problems shortly after reaching orbit on that mission. Wilmore and Williams were expected to fly the spacecraft to the ISS and dock for about a week before returning home.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Those plans were quickly dashed, however, when the Starliner spacecraft experienced helium leaks and thruster outages en route to the orbiting laboratory. Ultimately, NASA determined the spacecraft was not safe enough to return Williams and Wilmore home, and they became part of the next space station crew rotation, eventually returning home on a SpaceX capsule. The astronauts ultimately spent more than nine months in orbit.

Isaacman announced Monday that NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg will command the next crewed Starliner mission. Hoburg mentioned Williams and Wilmore’s ordeal at the news conference, saying the astronauts “conducted themselves with the utmost of professionalism, competence, and humility throughout the mission. They are American heroes, and I am deeply humbled to follow in their footsteps.”

Hoburg added that what “keeps me up at night” is not issues with Starliner’s hardware.

“It’s the underlying pattern,” Hoburg said. “It was inadequate systems engineering and integration, creating gaps in hardware qualification. In the case of the helium leaks and the crew module (thruster) failures, the unqualified environment was actually on the ground.”

It’s now clear that Starliner’s thrusters were damaged before ever launching, he said, and the issue should have been caught and prevented before the vehicle got to the launchpad.

During the Starliner test flight, NASA and Boeing insisted the astronauts’ lives were never in danger. But recently Isaacman, who took over the agency in December, moved to classify the botched test flight as a “Type A mishap.” That’s a designation that NASA defines as an incident that results in more than $2 million of damage, the loss of control or destruction of a vehicle, or a loss of life.

The Columbia and Challenger Space Shuttle disasters were also classified as “Type A” incidents.

在 NASA 领导层对波音公司的“星际客机”飞船进行了严厉谴责数月后——称 2024 年的失败试飞导致两名宇航员在太空停留的时间比预期长数月，是一场与“哥伦比亚”号和“挑战者”号一样的灾难——该航天机构公布了一项新的路线图，以使“星际客机”飞船走上定期飞行的轨道。

美国宇航局此前已多次表示，星际航线飞船的下一次飞行将是无人飞行。美国宇航局局长贾里德·艾萨克曼周一表示，该任务最早也要到12月才会进行。官员们表示，如果一切顺利，星际航线飞船最早也要到2028年中期才能执行下一次载人飞行任务。

艾萨克曼说：“在载人作业恢复之前，一些推进器需要进行设计修改。”

星际客机也需要新的轨道运载工具，因为过去将其送入太空的阿特拉斯火箭即将退役。美国宇航局周一表示，该机构正与波音公司和阿特拉斯火箭的供应商联合发射联盟合作，对其新型火神半人马座火箭进行认证，以期将其取代阿特拉斯火箭，用于载人飞行任务。

美国宇航局周一表示，预计将额外支付 3.59 亿美元用于星际航线飞船的升级和火神火箭认证。

周一的新闻发布会是数月以来波音“星际客机”项目首次发布实质性更新。与此同时，NASA正计划完成国际空间站的长期任务安排。国际空间站预计将于2030年代初退役，但仍需要轮换的宇航员在轨道上维持运行。

目前，SpaceX的载人龙飞船是美国唯一能够将宇航员送往和送回国际空间站的在役飞行器。在本月初，NASA与SpaceX的飞行合同即将到期，之后NASA又斥资9.46亿美元购买了三项新的飞行任务。

但 SpaceX 已明确表示，随着其将重心转移到星舰（Starship）——这款旨在将人类送上月球和火星的巨型运载火箭——项目，它打算终止其龙飞船计划。

“SpaceX计划逐步淘汰猎鹰和龙等老旧平台，集中精力研发下一代航天器星舰，这应该不是什么秘密，”艾萨克曼周一表示。“鉴于我们在星际航线项目上的悠久历史以及纳税人已经投入的资金，我们相信这是确保可靠载人进入近地轨道的最快途径。”

SpaceX 总裁兼首席运营官格温·肖特韦尔此前承认龙飞船将会停运，她在 2024 年表示，她预计龙飞船将在 2030 年代的某个时候停止运营。

目前尚不清楚，如果NASA仍然需要为国际空间站提供维修飞行服务，SpaceX是否会考虑让“龙”飞船退役。

但当最近被问及此事时，肖特韦尔直言不讳：“波音公司已经获得了报酬——我认为可能比我们获得的报酬还要多——来开发他们的载人飞船，”她在本月初的“全力以赴峰会”上说道。

SpaceX已获得NASA价值59.2亿美元的合同，用于执行一次演示任务和17次正式飞行；而波音公司则获得了价值48.2亿美元的合同，但仅被强制要求执行四次飞行，这还不包括周一公布的“星际航线”（Starliner）项目额外3.59亿美元的合同。（NASA近地轨道项目经理达纳·韦格尔周一表示，NASA正在重新考虑是否要求波音公司根据现有合同再执行两次飞行。）

“我们就让他们做点生意吧，”肖特韦尔谈到波音公司时说道。

星际航线飞船的研发已经进行了十多年，其推进器的问题一直困扰着它的研发。在无人试飞和美国宇航局于2024年6月进行的首次波音载人飞行测试中都出现了问题，那次测试的宇航员包括苏尼·威廉姆斯和布奇·威尔莫尔。

星际客机在执行那次任务进入轨道后不久就出现了问题。威尔莫尔和威廉姆斯原计划驾驶飞船前往国际空间站并对接，停留大约一周后再返回地球。

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

然而，这些计划很快就落空了，因为“星际客机”飞船在前往轨道实验室的途中遭遇了氦气泄漏和推进器故障。最终，NASA认定飞船不够安全，无法将威廉姆斯和威尔莫尔送回地球，他们成为了下一班空间站轮换乘员，最终乘坐SpaceX的飞船返回地球。这两位宇航员最终在轨道上停留了超过九个月。

艾萨克曼周一宣布，美国宇航局宇航员伍迪·霍伯格将指挥下一次载人星际航线任务。霍伯格在新闻发布会上提到了威廉姆斯和威尔莫尔的磨难，称两位宇航员“在整个任务过程中展现了极高的专业素养、能力和谦逊。他们是美国英雄，我深感荣幸能够追随他们的脚步。”

霍伯格补充说，“让我夜不能寐”的不是星际客机的硬件问题。

“这是根本原因，”霍伯格说。“是系统工程和集成不足，导致硬件认证存在缺陷。就氦气泄漏和乘员舱（推进器）故障而言，不合格的环境实际上是在地面上。”

他说，现在很明显，“星际航线”的推进器在发射前就已经损坏了，这个问题本应在飞船到达发射台之前就被发现并防止发生。

在星际客机试飞期间，NASA和波音公司坚称宇航员的生命从未受到威胁。但最近，去年12月接任NASA局长的艾萨克曼却将这次失败的试飞定性为“A类事故”。NASA将A类事故定义为造成超过200万美元损失、飞行器失控或损毁，或造成人员伤亡的事件。

哥伦比亚号和挑战者号航天飞机灾难也被归类为“A类”事故。