NASA and Boeing postpone first manned flight of Starliner until next year

NASA and Boeing have decided to postpone the launch of the first manned flight of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft until the beginning of 2023. It was revealed at a joint press conference on Thursday.

As stated by the manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program Steve Stich, NASA and Boeing experts may set a target date around February. 

The spacecraft crew flight was originally scheduled for December 2022. However, officials with NASA and Boeing decided to delay the crewed flight to address a few issues identified on the unmanned test flight in May. 

Boeing's Starliner program is already several years behind schedule. Similar to SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, which has been transporting astronauts to the ISS since May 2020, the American Starliner spacecraft was designed for the same purpose. 

Among the issues that were identified during the flight test of an unmanned space taxi are problems in a spacecraft thruster and software bugs. However, these issues did not seriously affect the test mission, and the spacecraft was able to dock with the ISS and land on Earth. Nevertheless, they seemed quite serious for the representatives of NASA and Boeing, so it was important to allocate time to address them before the launch of the first manned flight. 

It is noteworthy that the Staarliner’s first test flight at the end of 2019 was stricken by severe errors. Back then, the spacecraft failed to dock with the ISS due to the issues with the synchronization system. It took almost two years to fix it up. Only after that was it possible to launch the Starliner spacecraft. The problems with sticky valves were also an obstacle for the specialists to complete the mission.

Despite these circumstances, NASA supports Boeing. Boeing is one of two companies (the other one is SpaceX), with which NASA concluded a contract after the Space Shuttle program retired in 2011. Under this contract the company should develop the spacecraft. Boeing, NASA's longtime partner, was originally expected to be ahead of SpaceX and launch the spacecraft first. However, Boeing is at least two years behind its competitor now.

It is known that the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is planning to have two spacecraft to transport astronauts to the ISS and return them to Earth. The reason is that the agency will always have a backup transportation option in case there are issues identified in one of the vehicles.