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The future of Boeing’s Starliner remains in limbo after NASA released a new statement revealing it is “still evaluating” whether its next flight would be crewed.
The news comes days after SpaceX founder Elon Musk threatened to decommission its Dragon Capsule following a row with President Donald Trump.
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Currently, the US is reliant on Dragon to take its astronauts to the ISS after Starliner left two astronauts “stranded” on the space laboratory following problems with its thrusters.
The mission was intended to pave the way for Starliner to become a regular alternative, but its failure sent the project back to the drawing board.
“NASA is assessing the earliest potential for a Starliner flight to the International Space Station in early 2026, pending system certification and resolution of Starliner’s technical issues,” the agency said in a statement on Friday.
“The agency is still evaluating whether Starliner’s next flight will be in a crew or cargo configuration.”
Previously, in April, NASA said its astronauts were “training for a Starliner post-certification mission”, but it had “not yet assigned a full Starliner-1 crew for focused training”.
The spacecraft blasted off to the International Space Station (ISS) in June last year with two astronauts, but was forced to return uncrewed following issues with its thrusters and helium leaks.
It meant passengers Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams spent nine months in space and were forced to come home on a rival SpaceX Dragon capsule in one of the most high-profile safety incidents in NASA’s history.
However, despite the problems, Starliner did return safely to Earth in a vindication for Boeing’s engineers, and the aerospace giant was reportedly confident it could have made the trip home with Wilmore and Williams onboard.
Subsequently, NASA made modifications to Starliner’s system to address its underlying problems.
“What we’d like to do is that one flight and then get into a crew rotation flight,” explained Steve Stitch, the space agency’s commercial crew program manager, in March.
“So, the next flight up would really test all the changes we’re making to the vehicle, and then the next fight beyond that, we really need to get Boeing into a crew rotation. So, that’s the strategy.”
Starliner’s very first attempt at a flight without humans onboard failed in 2019 due to software glitches, but it eventually docked with the ISS in May 2022.
The latest confusion is a fresh setback for Boeing, whose commercial aviation and space divisions have been suffering in recent years, contributing to the second biggest loss in its history last year.
The US planemaker lost US$11.8bn in 2024, taking its total losses since 2019 to more than US$35bn. In total, Boeing delivered just 348 jets in the last 12 months – down from 528 a year earlier and significantly less than the 765 delivered by Airbus.
