Boeing

This week, SpaceX hit its first triple-digit launch year and continues to extend that number in the remaining months of 2024. Blue Origin might finally get its NS-27 mission off the ground to certify its new New Shepard rocket. Finally, NASA’s Artemis program is once again under fire for being behind schedule and so much… so much… over budget.

Over the weekend, NASA made its decision that Boeing’s Starliner would not be safe enough to risk returning its crew from space. Instead, the agency has decided the two astronauts who flew up to space on it will return with Crew-9 on SpaceX’s Dragon early next year.

In an update to the media this week, NASA reiterated many points it said in an earlier update as it works through more data before making a final decision on the Starliner CFT spacecraft. For now, Starliner’s crew are in limbo as to what how and when they will return home.

NASA‘s mood toward’s the safety of returning Boeing‘s Crewed Flight Test crew back on Starliner has switched from steadfast support to plans to use SpaceX Dragon for a return flight. However, this has caused drastic changes to both SpaceX‘s and NASA’s launched schedules using its Crew Dragon spacecraft.

NASA held a press conference yesterday to talk about NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and Starliner. In attendance were Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate; Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program; Bill Spetch, operations integrations manager; Emily Nelson, chief flight director at JSC; and Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program element.

Over a 24 hour process, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft inched their way to rendezvous with the International Space Station Thursday. In typical Starliner fashion, it wasn’t perfect, but the crew arrived to the station safe and are ready to get some work done.

NASA and Boeing teams are targeting a 12:15 P.M. ET docking of Starliner with the International Space Station after a successful liftoff Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning Boeing, ULA, and NASA once again convened to attempt to launch the Starliner CFT mission with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams onboard. With a clean countdown, ULA’s Atlas V successfully delivered Starliner to space, however, two additional helium leaks have been found while in orbit, but docking is planned to continue unchanged.

After about a month of delays due to a helium leak and review of its propulsion system, Boeing and NASA are ready to launch the final test flight of the Commercial Crew Program, Starliner Crewed Flight Test.

Spoiler alert: This is looking to be a very busy week for rocket launches and not a single one is coming from a company outside the US (Rocket Lab is an exception). Starship, Starliner, and Virgin Galactic all have big missions this week.

ULA has completed repairs to Atlas V‘s ground launch sequencer, which was the cause of Saturday’s last-minute abort to Boeing‘s first crewed liftoff. Starliner’s CFT mission has been rescheduled for Wednesday, June 5 at 10:52 A.M. ET.

It seems like this is again not Starliner’s week, as NASA and Boeing pushing the launch of the first crewed Starliner spaceflight back from the May 25th launch date. The new launch date is no earlier than June 1, one week later. However what is going on with Starliner is less than clear.

This week will be the third week in a row the headline launch is supposed to be Boeing’s Starliner Crewed Flight Test. SpaceX is also planning another banger of a week with three launches and Rocket Lab shows up again.

Boeing announced Tuesday morning that they, ULA, and NASA are now no longer targeting a launch for this Friday of Boeing‘s first crewed Starliner mission. Due to a helium leak on the Starliner’s service module, the launch is slated for no earlier than May 21.

Once again the big story this week will be the reattempt of Boeing’s CFT mission to the International Space Station. After a week of analysis, ULA is changing out a valve on the rockets upper stage which is what caused the abort last week.

After an extremely smooth countdown and crew egress, ULA controllers called a scrub Starliner’s Crewed Flight Test a few hours before planned liftoff due to a misbehaving valve. While the problem is a known issue by ULA, it will take a few days to trouble shoot, meaning the next launch attempt won’t be until at least Friday.

After a long road of delays, technical failures, and two inflight tests, Boeing‘s Starliner is finally at the pad and ready to launch later today. The mission will be a major milestone for Boeing, who is desperate for a win right now, but it might show that the world has moved on from legacy providers.

By the end of the week the International Space Station will be fully ready to support Boeing Starliner’s Crewed Test Flight with an opening on the forward docking port on the station’s Harmony Module. This will be completed with the reshuffling of two SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

Last week Boeing and ULA rolled a Starliner spacecraft from the former’s facilities on Kennedy Space Center to the latter’s launch site on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. With that, final checkouts are underway before two NASA astronauts climb inside and fly it to the ISS and back.

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.

Two months since Boeing and NASA’s joint press conference, where they disclosed a significant delay in the Starliner Crewed Flight Test mission, a timetable for the potential launch of CFT has now emerged. It looks like SpaceX will end up covering crew rotation for a little bit longer.