There's still a Boeing Starliner capsule

Sometimes it's hard to imagine that NASA and Boeing are still working on preparing Boeing's Starliner capsule for another attempt at a crewed test flight. Back on February 19th, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman released a long-awaited summary of the mission. The headline was that NASA had classified the Starliner mission as a “Type A” mishap. That level is the most serious on the scale that goes from A down to D, plus one minor fault without a letter. The definition at the linked page (.pdf) is the direct cost of mission failure and property damage greater than or equal to $2,000,000 with two other conditions aimed at aircraft mishaps rather than spacecraft. 

Today we learned that Boeing and NASA are still working on a next Starliner flight, which has no defined date and not many more details. 

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.” 

The Starliner crewed flight test (CFT) mission had many major problems; that is, serious, but short of killing the crew. The big examples were the failures of five thrusters on the spacecraft’s service module that failed during the rendezvous, along with leaks in seven out of eight helium manifolds on the service module and a reaction control system jet failure. 

In his summary of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) status for the ASAP meeting, Rominger said recommendations from the PIT report are being addressed and that “management and operational changes have been made.” 

The PIT report pointed to “cultural and leadership challenges that undermined technical rigor and exacerbated technical risks.” The report stated that the root causes were as follows:

NASA’s hands-off contract approach limited insight into the Starliner’s development

Boeing’s inadequate systems engineering and reliance on subcontractors without sufficient oversight created gaps in hardware qualification

NASA CCP’s culture prioritized provider success over technical rigor

The PIT report took a dim view of the CCP and claims to have changed their way of doing business, but from our standpoint of interested observers, we don't have a way (that I'm aware of) to tell if that's just drawing a different org chart or if people are moved into jobs they're good at or out of jobs they're not particularly good at. 

There's little mention of the big problem that's hanging over Starliner: they're running out of time.  You'll remember that months ago there was some talk about extending the life of the Space Station, but lately there has been talk about whether the ISS can even make it to 2030 and its planned de-orbit. 

During Monday’s ASAP meeting, Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Chair and former commander of the 45th Space Wing, said that while the ISS is intended to be in use until at least 2030, the ongoing leaks on the Russian segment are “one of the most significant safety risks to the program.”

She also pointed to the more than 40-year-old spacesuit equipment, which makes the suite of upcoming spacewalks increasingly challenging. Helms did note that there was “a robust life extension plan” in place for those.

The astronauts on the Space Station get pretty much routine six month stays on the ISS and now are primarily riding SpaceX Crew Dragons for those missions, although there are still missions that launch from Russia. The original plan was for Crew Dragons and Starliner to alternate flights. One of the things that's being considered is making the missions shorter so that there can be more of them. 

The next change of crews, Crew-13, is currently slated to fly in September, moving up from its previously planned window in November “to help increase the frequency of U.S. crew rotation missions to the space station.” It will be a SpaceX Crew Dragon mission. 

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft rests in the desert of the White Sands Space Harbor after its return to Earth from its failed mission to the International Space Station in 2024. Image credit: Boeing