NASA Chief: Boeing Starliner Parts to Be Redesigned Before 2028 Crewed Flight
NASA chief Jared Isaacman says parts of Boeing's Starliner will be redesigned ahead of a 2028 crewed flight, with the spacecraft slated for up to five ISS missions.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said on Monday that components of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will undergo redesign before it carries astronauts again, with a crewed flight now targeted for 2028.
Speaking during a briefing, Isaacman also indicated that Starliner is expected to fly as many as five crewed missions to the International Space Station under NASA's commercial crew arrangements.
The timeline follows a series of technical setbacks that have kept the vehicle grounded since its uncrewed test flight. According to Dana Weigel, NASA's program manager for the space station, Boeing has already carried out fixes on the Starliner-1 mission after engineers traced the cause of the spacecraft's helium leaks.
The redesign work and the corrected leak issue are meant to clear the path for Starliner to resume operational crew rotations. The 2028 target gives Boeing several years to qualify the changes before astronauts board the capsule again.
Starliner is one of two privately built vehicles NASA relies on to ferry crews to and from the orbiting laboratory, alongside SpaceX's Dragon. Its return to service would restore a second independent route for American crewed access to the station.