Launch officials say the mission could take off as early as February, according to Steve Stich, the manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The issues that officials identified during Starliner’s uncrewed test flight included hangups with a few of the spacecraft’s thrusters that did not power on as intended and software problems. None of those issues had a major impact on the test mission, however, and the vehicle was still able to complete its multi-day journey to the ISS and return safely back to Earth. Officials have, however, deemed those problems serious enough to require fixes before allowing crew on board the vehicle.
Despite its setbacks, NASA has stood by Boeing, which is one of two companies — the other being SpaceX — that the space agency tapped to build an astronaut-worthy spacecraft after the Space Shuttle program retired in 2011. While even the space agency initially expected that Boeing, a decades-long partner of NASA’s, would beat SpaceX to the launch pad, Boeing is now at least two years behind its relative upstart rival.
NASA astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita Williams have been assigned to be the first astronauts to fly aboard Starliner next year.
