In the coming years, Boeing wants to keep flying its Starliner spacecraft to the space station. CEO Kelly Ortberg shared this plan during a TV interview yesterday. He took over last year amid production problems at the company. He said Boeing works with NASA to fix issues that caused the ship to return empty without astronauts.
The empty return forced NASA to bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft earlier this year. NASA said last month it still plans to certify Starliner for crew flights. The space agency has checked about 70 percent of flight data from the 2024 mission. Some problems will stay under review until later this year, before more tests happen.
Ortberg feels good about fixing the ship. He called it simple engineering work. The CEO said they know what went wrong with the thrusters that lost power during docking with the space station. He believes they have clear solutions for these problems. Boeing hopes to make several flights in the upcoming years.
Starliner is one of two ships made to carry people to the space station under NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The other ship comes from SpaceX. NASA plans to use the space station until at least 2030. This gives Boeing time to perfect its spacecraft and recover money spent on development.
The empty return forced NASA to bring astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft earlier this year. NASA said last month it still plans to certify Starliner for crew flights. The space agency has checked about 70 percent of flight data from the 2024 mission. Some problems will stay under review until later this year, before more tests happen.
Ortberg feels good about fixing the ship. He called it simple engineering work. The CEO said they know what went wrong with the thrusters that lost power during docking with the space station. He believes they have clear solutions for these problems. Boeing hopes to make several flights in the upcoming years.
Starliner is one of two ships made to carry people to the space station under NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The other ship comes from SpaceX. NASA plans to use the space station until at least 2030. This gives Boeing time to perfect its spacecraft and recover money spent on development.
