NASA to order more Starliner missions and help certify a new rocket to keep it flying - Ars Technica

As it contemplates a future without access to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, NASA will make some key moves to ensure that Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which has a decidedly checkered record in spaceflight to date, is safer and can continue flying after its Atlas V rocket retires.

Multiple sources confirmed to Ars that as early as next week, NASA will announce that it will order two additional Starliner crewed missions from Boeing, pay some of the costs to fix the spacecraft’s thruster issues, and provide support to certify the spacecraft’s launch on a new rocket.

NASA is taking these steps after SpaceX made clear in discussions with space agency officials in recent months that it intends to retire the Crew Dragon vehicle by 2030, if not before. Crew Dragon is presently the only operational spacecraft NASA has available for routine astronaut missions to low-Earth orbit.

SpaceX would not commit to flying Dragon longer

After long signaling it privately, SpaceX has begun to publicly confirm its intentions to wind down the Dragon program, a remarkable move given that the vehicle began flying humans just six years ago. However, the company is seeking to pivot toward its much larger Starship rocket, with the intent of launching its more lucrative Starlink satellites and a new megaconstellation focused on orbital data centers.

This week, on the All-In Podcast, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell was asked if the company would respond to demand for Crew Dragon and keep flying the vehicle “for some time.”

Shotwell would not commit to that. “We’re not retiring it today, for sure,” she replied. Then Shotwell suggested that Boeing should really step up and deliver. “There is another provider,” she said. “Boeing has been paid, I think, probably more than we have been paid to develop their human capsule. So we’re just gonna let them have some business. They should fly their capsule. The government paid a lot of money for that.”

NASA did, indeed, pay a lot for the Commercial Crew program. Dating to 2010, for development and certification of their vehicles, NASA has paid SpaceX approximately $3.1 billion and Boeing $5.1 billion. SpaceX has been the critical provider. With Dragon, the company has launched 13 crewed missions to the International Space Station for NASA, with its next one set for October. All flights to date have been successful.

Starliner has really struggled

By contrast, Boeing has struggled mightily to bring the more expensive Starliner vehicle into service for NASA. Starliner experienced numerous issues on uncrewed test flights in 2019 and 2022; most seriously, thruster issues nearly led to the catastrophic loss of two astronauts during the spacecraft’s first crew test flight in June 2024. As a result, in February, NASA formally classified the 2024 flight of Starliner as a “Type A” mishap. The NASA astronauts on this flight, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, ultimately had to be returned safely to Earth on a Crew Dragon vehicle.

As part of this review, new NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the space agency also shared some of the blame for the near-disaster.

“Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware,” Isaacman wrote in a letter to the NASA workforce at the time. “It is decision-making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight.”

NASA released a 311-page report detailing the findings of an investigative team that looked into the mistakes made by both Boeing and NASA. But despite all of this, half a year later, NASA is returning to Boeing to take a central role in its human spaceflight program.

The Commercial Crew program was developed as a fixed-price program, which means that after receiving an agreed-upon payment from NASA, the private companies are responsible for delivering crew-capable spacecraft through NASA’s rigorous certification process. Because of its ongoing challenges with Starliner, Boeing has already taken in excess of $2 billion in charges.