NASA Further Delays First Operational Starliner Flight

NASA will rely on SpaceX's Crew Dragon for two crewed missions to the ISS in 2025 while evaluating whether Boeing's Starliner requires another test flight for certification. SpaceNews reports: In an Oct. 15 statement, NASA said it will use Crew Dragon for both the Crew-10 mission to the ISS, scheduled for no earlier than February 2025, and the Crew-11 mission scheduled for no earlier than July. Crew-10 will fly NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers along with astronaut Takuya Onishi from the Japanese space agency JAXA and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. NASA has not yet announced the crew for the Crew-11 mission.

Earlier this year, NASA had hoped that Boeing's CST-100 Starliner would be certified in time to fly the early 2025 mission. Problems with the Crew Flight Test mission, which launched in June with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, led NASA to conclude in July that the spacecraft would not be certified in time. It delayed that Starliner-1 mission from February to August 2025, moving up Crew-10 to February. NASA also announced then that it would prepare Crew-11 in parallel with Starliner-1 for launch in that August 2025 slot. "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," NASA said in its statement about the 2025 missions. "NASA is keeping options on the table for how best to achieve system certification, including windows of opportunity for a potential Starliner flight in 2025."

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[saloomy]

Adm. Levine? For Diversity? ULA has you covered: https://www.ulalaunch.com/care... [ulalaunch.com]

Or are you referring to military in leadership? Because ULA has you covered there too: https://www.ulalaunch.com/care... [ulalaunch.com]

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[Eunomion]

Onoz, diversity! Dey derker jerbs!

Stay in Russia, asshole.

Ditch Boeing ASAP

[backslashdot]

And please get rid of SLS. Cancel it now. Call your congresscritter and insist on it. I am serious. That thing is a cancer. The money should go to Stoke Space, Blue Origin, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, Astra, Firefly, SpaceX, homeless guy down the street etc. Flush it down any toilet but Boeing's.

Re:Ditch Boeing ASAP

[Randseed]

I've often wondered whether from a medium-term cost-benefits analysis we should be concentrating on something like near-Earth asteroid mining and creating a moon base. In the short term, double down on SpaceX since they have something that mostly works. Get some infrastructure up there that can refine, process, and manufacture equipment. The major cost right now is getting out of the Earth's gravity well, so the more that we can do out of it the better. I'm probably not explaining this well because it's 4AM and I just got up for a sandwich.

Re: Ditch Boeing ASAP

[beelsebob]

Once starship is operational, Iâ(TM)m not convinced that asteroid mining would be cheeper than it. It will lower launch costs per kg by about 2-3 orders of magnitude. Meanwhile, going to and from the asteroid belt requires about 7km/s of delta v in each direction, which is actually *more* fuel than reaching LEO once youâ(TM)ve gone both ways. Why do you think europa clipper required an entire expended falcon heavy *plus* a kick stage to get out there (and still required a bunch of gravity assists on the way).

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[Randseed]

That's true. But I was talking more about near Earth asteroids, so we don't have to go all the way to the belt. I'm not any astronomer, let alone an astrophysicist obviously. It does seem conceivable that you could set up automated stuff on near Earth asteroids to lob material back with a mass driver or something. For now this is obviously the realm of science fiction but it might be worth developing. Moreso than space tourism or whatever the hell they're calling it now unless it's to use people with more m

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[nightflameauto]

Once starship is operational, Iâ(TM)m not convinced that asteroid mining would be cheeper than it. It will lower launch costs per kg by about 2-3 orders of magnitude. Meanwhile, going to and from the asteroid belt requires about 7km/s of delta v in each direction, which is actually *more* fuel than reaching LEO once youâ(TM)ve gone both ways. Why do you think europa clipper required an entire expended falcon heavy *plus* a kick stage to get out there (and still required a bunch of gravity assists on the way).

Asteroid mining is, at some point in the future, going to be "profitable." But that point won't come until it ceases to be about tugging shit back and forth to Earth, or we come up with a propulsion method other than, "Load up chemicals, spew them out in fire as mass." Maybe there's mining operations to gather fuel on the other end of the run, but I don't really see that being the way to get past the main issue. It simply costs too much in energy and/or mass to shove ourselves around out there today to make

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[necro81]

I don't disagree with your sentiment. However: the article was talking about Starliner - nothing to do with SLS.

Re:Ditch Boeing ASAP

[Xylantiel]

While I don't necessarily entirely disagree, it should be kept in mind that, despite all their successes, SpaceX has not yet demonstrated capability equal to what SLS has already done. SLS has already put a human-passenger-capable-size payload around the moon. SpaceX will not have equivalent demonstrated capability until starship on-orbit refueling is demonstrated. Starship is not capable of direct to lunar launch. I typically think of SLS as the more expensive of two redundant options. I think we are not quite to the point where it can be dispensed of out-of-hand, but getting pretty close. I'm not aware that any of the other companies you mention other than SpaceX have plans for anything capable of putting hardware that can support humans beyond low Earth orbit.

My bet is that there will be maybe one or two more SLS launches, by which point SpaceX will basically have a full-cycle lunar access system, and SLS will then be cancelled. The SpaceX-based system is very different, since it would consist of launching humans on Falcon+Dragon, the "human landing system" as a variant starship (without reentry capability) and then as many as 5 or 10 fuel launches. However, the big difference is that the human-rated part of this type system already has two options (Falcon+Dragon, Atlas+Starliner) almost through certification. This is the reason to cancel SLS really. It is unclear that there is a realistic path to human-carry certification. But, given the investment so far, it is probably worth using SLS to get some hardware into lunar orbit. Assuming SpaceX continues to succeed, that is probably what will happen I think.

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[rickb928]

Or, simply, delay and reset SLS expectations to allow Boeing time to figure out what they will be able to do.

Another Test Flight?

[crunchy_one]

I don't understand why this would even be a question for NASA to evaluate. The last one went so very well. Just ask Butch and Suni when they finally get home.

There is nothing to evaluate

[RUs1729]

The moronic MBAs (excuse the pleonasm) who have been running Boeing for the last quarter of a century have amply proved that their vision does not reach beyond the next quarter's numbers.