NASA recently announced it will use a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for two astronaut rotations in 2025. SpaceX has been handling those flights since 2020, so what’s new? Well, the space agency originally assigned one of them to Boeing’s Starliner.
The problem. NASA expected Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to be certified in time for a routine mission in February 2025. However, technical issues during the first crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) have delayed certification once again.
The solution. NASA moved up SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission to February 2025 to cover Boeing’s first operational flight, Starliner-1.
While NASA has scheduled Starliner-1 for August 2025, it’s not confident Boeing’s spacecraft will be ready by that summer. As a result, the agency has moved SpaceX’s Crew-11 mission to July 2025.
Crew-10 and Crew-11 missions. Crew-10 will be a routine six-month mission to the ISS with two U.S. astronauts—commander Anne McClain and pilot Nichole Ayers—along with Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
Crew-11 will be the second routine six-month mission in 2025, filling the gap left by Boeing. NASA has scheduled this mission for 2026, and the crew hasn’t yet been officially announced.
Astronauts stranded in space. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who arrived at the ISS in a Starliner spacecraft as part of a 10-day test mission, are still in space four months later.
Their Starliner returned to Earth empty due to problems with the Boeing spacecraft’s maneuvering thrusters. Wilmore and Williams are now part of the ISS core crew. They’ll return to Earth in February 2025 aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft from the Crew-9 mission, which NASA launched with two seats open for them.
What about Boeing? NASA has yet to decide whether the Starliner needs another test flight before it certifies the spacecraft for operational missions. Pending that decision, the space agency has indefinitely delayed the Starliner’s flights.
Boeing hasn’t commented but is reviewing test flight data with NASA to understand the problems related to the spacecraft’s propellants and helium leaks. This task is complicated, as the company only recovered the capsule. Boeing designed the service module, which housed the problematic reaction control system, to burn up in the atmosphere, similar to the Crew Dragon trunk.
Two spacecraft are better than one. The seat-swapping agreement between NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos has yet to be renewed. It could end in March 2025 with the launch of astronaut Jonny Kim aboard a Soyuz capsule.
After that, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will be the only U.S. option to reach low Earth orbit until the Starliner is ready. While having two spacecraft is better than one, Boeing is losing a significant amount of money on development. In addition, it has little margin to recover those losses within the remaining five years of the ISS’ life, especially if NASA continues to tolerate no risk. The future of the program remains uncertain.
Image | NASA
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