ars TECHNICA by Stephen Clark – Jul 16, 2025
NASA is doing all it can to ensure Boeing doesn't abandon the Starliner program. After so many delays, difficulties, and disappointments, you might be inclined to think that NASA wants to wash its hands of Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft.
But that's not the case.
The manager of NASA's commercial crew program, Steve Stich, told reporters Thursday that Boeing and its propulsion supplier, Aerojet Rocketdyne, are moving forward with several changes to the Starliner spacecraft to resolve problems that bedeviled a test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) last year. These changes include new seals to plug helium leaks and thermal shunts and barriers to keep the spacecraft's thrusters from overheating.
Boeing, now more than $2 billion in the hole to pay for all Starliner's delays, is still more than a year away from executing on its multibillion-dollar NASA contract and beginning crew rotation flights to the ISS. But NASA officials say Boeing remains committed to Starliner.
"We really are working toward a flight as soon as early next year with Starliner, and then ultimately, our goal is to get into crew rotation flights with Starliner," Stich said. "And those would start no earlier than the second crew rotation slot at the end of next year."
That would be 11 years after Boeing officials anticipated the spacecraft would enter operational service for NASA when they announced the Starliner program in 2010.
Much More:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/07/despite-chronic-letdowns-nasa-just-cant-quit-boeings-starliner/
