The United Launch Alliance company is gearing up for the next use of one of its remaining Alabama built Atlas-V rockets to launch the next mission of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station. That flight could come as soon as April of 2026. The contractor, and its Atlas boosters which are built at the ULA factory in Decatur, are currently under contract to launch for Starliners. One of these Alabama rockets launched the Boeing space capsule on its ill-fated mission to carry astronauts last year. The Starliner encountered problems with its software and thrusters, prompting NASA to keep astronaut Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore aboard ISS for over nine months, instead of the ten days originally planned.
That can be considered the “good news.”
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. 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. Boeing said in a statement that it remains committed to the Starliner program with safety the highest priority.
NASA is also slashing the planned number of Starliner flights, from six to four. 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. NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said in a statement.
NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 — three years after the final space shuttle flight — to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost. The Boeing contract was worth $4.2 billion and SpaceX’s $2.6 billion. Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its first astronaut mission for NASA in 2020. Its 12th crew liftoff for NASA was this summer.
