The Boring CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will not make its operating first flight from NASA, pushing the flight into 2025. It is a continuation of difficulties that began with the Crew Flight Test mission, or CFT, an endeavor in which it had previously made earlier this year. NASA had envisioned making the Starliner operational in time for the start of 2024 but had to take some additional time to assess trouble with malfunctioning thrusters and problems with the software for that testing period.
NASA announced that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is scheduled to remain the primary spacecraft for up-and-down missions to the International Space Station in early 2025 while further reviews and certification are made regarding the Starliner program. The target date of the Crew-10 mission moves to February 2025, with plans for the Crew-11 mission in July 2025, effectively shelving Starliner until further notice.
The agency was now considering a second test flight for Boeing to address the technical issues that had been raised, although not yet settled on and subject to their schedule change with NASA and Boeing working toward a declaration of operational readiness for the Starliner .
These extended delays raise questions about the capability of the commercial crew program to provide redundancy, as this was designed to alternate between Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to provide reliable access to the ISS.
