Boeing‘s Starliner spacecraft is currently on track for its April 2024 launch date according to NASA’s Phil McAlister. However, this is all reliant on Starliner performing well during a January parachute drop test on a newly designed soft link on the spacecraft.
Starliner finishing up modifications
According to McAlister, NASA’s director of its commercial space division, Starliner is still on track to launch its first crewed mission next April. This was said during a meeting of NASA’s Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee.
“We are on track for that launch,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot of things to do, obviously.”
Earlier this year Boeing and NASA announced the delay of Starliner’s Crewed Flight Test, which was scheduled for the summer. The delay was due to findings that tape used throughout the cabin was found to be flammable and soft links to the capsule’s parachutes would fail much earlier than expected.
Since then, teams have been working through mitigating the tape by either removing it when safe or covering it in flame retardant coverings. “We went zone by zone and identified all the tape and what would be the risk to removing the tape,” said Dave McCann, Boeing’s chief engineer for Starliner.
The next milestone for Boeing will be a drop test for its new parachute soft links this January. If that goes well then an April launch date could be possible.
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Future ISS crewed missions
With a successful CFT mission next spring, Boeing would be able to start regular crew rotation missions in early 2025. Unlike SpaceX who started commercial operations the same year of DM-2, SpaceX is already slated for the fall flight rotation.
Future commercial crew flights
| Year | Spring | Fall |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Spx Crew-8 Boeing CFT | Spx Crew-9 |
| 2025 | Boeing Crew-1 | Spx Crew-10 |
| 2026 | Boeing Crew-2 | Spx Crew-11 |
| 2027 | Boeing Crew-3 | Spx Crew-12 |
| 2028 | Boeing Crew-4 | Spx Crew-13 |
| 2029 | Boeing Crew-5 | Spx Crew-14 |
| 2030 | Boeing Crew-6 |
The ISS is slated to be retired in 2030 due to its deteriorating conditions on orbit. That doesn’t mean there might not be future missions to the station assigned to Boeing or SpaceX.
If the lifespan is extended, which depends on if commercial station options are available, more crew rotations could be needed. There could also be other servicing missions to bring back any equipment that could be reused or salvaged.
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