Starliner Is Returning to Space, Minus Astronauts

Boeing and NASA have agreed to keep astronauts off the company's next Starliner flight and instead perform a trial run with cargo to prove its safety. Monday's announcement comes eight months after the first and only Starliner crew returned to Earth aboard SpaceX after a prolonged mission, the AP reports. Although NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams managed to dock Starliner to the International Space Station in 2024, the capsule had so many problems that NASA ordered it to come back empty, leaving the astronauts stuck there for more than nine months.

Engineers have since been poring over the thruster and other issues that plagued the Starliner capsule. Its next cargo run to the space station will occur no earlier than April, pending additional tests and certification. NASA is also slashing the planned number of Starliner flights, from six to four. Two other have been reserved as options, the Wall Street Journal reports. If the cargo mission goes well, then that will leave the remaining three Starliner flights for crew exchanges before the space station is decommissioned in 2030. The Journal notes that officials are worried about using SpaceX as the only provider of crewed flights, especially after Elon Musk's threat earlier this year to stop operating the Dragon spacecraft NASA relies on. Musk walked back the threat hours later.