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When the Boeing Starliner launched in June 2024 for its test flight, it was off to a decent start. It wasn't until the next day, on the way to the International Space Station, that NASA discovered issues with the spacecraft's thrusters.
The Starliner service module had helium leaks and five of its thrusters failed due to overheating. For more than an hour, Commander Butch Wilmore had to take manual control of the spacecraft because the automated system lost control of the vehicle.
Starliner did successfully dock with the ISS, but NASA decided it was too great a risk for Wilmore and his crewmate, Suni Williams, to fly back to Earth on the Starliner. Instead, their planned eight-day mission was extended to 286 days.
"I wanted to hug my husband and hug my dogs," Williams said in a press conference after their return. "And I'll say in that order, but maybe not."
Now, more than two years since the start of the mission, NASA officials said it's possible Boeing Starliner could launch again as soon as this fall.
"There's still opportunities to launch in ‘26," Dana Weigel, manager of NASA's Low Earth Orbit program, said in a press conference on Aug. 3. "We're going to make sure that we've laid in all the right technical work and that we use that to drive the schedule. But in terms of a space station flight plan and windows where I've got an open docking port, I've still got capability to fly this year."
Type A Mishap
Earlier this year, a NASA investigation pinned the blame on both the agency and Boeing for allowing the Starliner to fly. NASA labeled it a "Type A" mishap, the strongest designation which was similarly given to the Challenger and Columbia disasters.
"More of a ‘Type A minus,'" Steve Provence, a former NASA researcher who teaches at the University of St. Thomas, said. "You want to put it there because of the risk to the crew and the efforts that they had to go through to then salvage the mission and bring the crew back."
In their investigation, NASA said the mission "while ultimately successful in preserving crew safety, revealed critical vulnerabilities in the Starliner's propulsion system, NASA's oversight model, and the broader culture of commercial human spaceflight ... The lessons from [the mission] must be institutionalized to ensure that safety is never compromised in pursuit of schedule or cost."
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After the investigation was released, representatives from the company issued a statement saying Boeing was "grateful" for the investigation, adding "Boeing has made substantial progress on corrective actions for technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team that directly align with the findings in the report. NASA's report will reinforce our ongoing efforts to strengthen our work ...We're working closely with NASA to ensure readiness for future Starliner missions and remain committed to NASA's vision for two commercial crew providers."
In an earnings call in July, Boeing CEO Robert Kelly Ortberg said the aviation company is working with NASA on timing the launches of Starliner, both crewed and uncrewed, and that "the redesign of the Starliner deficiencies is going quite well, and we’re feeling pretty good about that."
Both NASA and Boeing have committed to the mission being uncrewed. In a press conference announcing the investigation's findings, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said, "NASA will not fly another crew on Starliner until technical causes are understood and corrected, the propulsion system is fully qualified, and appropriate investigation recommendations are implemented."
NASA's Commercial Crew program
In 2005, Congress directed NASA to work with private companies to develop commercial crew and cargo space flight capabilities. NASA, in turn, created the Commercial Crew Program. Among other things, it allows private companies to fly to the International Space Station, and has been touted as a taste of the future of space exploration, while NASA turns its sights on the moon and Mars.
NASA awarded contracts in 2014 to two private space exploration companies with the goal of expanding access to space and low Earth orbit. SpaceX, which received a $2.6 billion contract, has launched 12 missions since 2020, with its 13th mission expected in the coming weeks. Boeing, which was awarded $4.2 billion, has yet to fly one official mission. Each of its flights on Starliner thus far, including the 2024 flight, were test flights.
In June, just months after NASA labeled the Boeing Starliner test flight as a "Type A" mishap, NASA's Office of Inspector General released a scathing report of the program's oversight of Boeing's Starliner, stating, in part, "unresolved technical issues were driven by NASA's and Boeing's overconfidence in the company's use of heritage systems, unachievable schedule, and limited flight simulation data."
Starliner has yet to receive human-rating certification, which would allow it to fly a crew on official missions. Beyond this, NASA and Boeing are facing a time constraint to accomplish these missions. The International Space Station is poised to be decommissioned as soon as 2030.
"You have to have resupply missions, you have to bring up new crews," Provence said. "All of that between now and 2030 — those manifests, those schedules, those launch windows have all been planned out years in advance, and there were slotted points for the Starliner. If you're not going to certify it for another three or four years, what do you do with the missions that you had planned for the Starliner?"
For their part, NASA and Boeing have modified their contract in November 2025, to reduce the number of potential flights Starliner can embark on, from six to four. The total price tag of the contract, thus, was dropped to $3.7 billion. NASA's contract with SpaceX, meanwhile, was modified to allow SpaceX to increase its number of missions.
Despite the safety concerns, the OIG report noted that flying Starliner's first mission without a crew will increase costs for NASA.
"By using one of its contracted post-certification missions — valued at over $300 million — to allow Boeing to conduct what is effectively a third uncrewed orbital flight test," the report reads, "NASA will incur the cost of purchasing at least one additional post-certification mission for crew from either Boeing or SpaceX. This decision increases NASA's costs to maintain a crewed ISS, along with compounding the ongoing delays with certifying the Starliner and reducing the number of contracted crew flights NASA has under [the Commercial Crew Program]."
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