Boeing Targets Starliner Launch With Astronauts In February 2023

JAKARTA - Boeing Co targets in February 2023 to be able to fly its first Starliner mission with astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). This was explained by Boeing and NASA officials on Thursday, August 25, as the aerospace company was nearing the final stages of developing an expensive and badly delayed spacecraft.

Starliner's first crewed flight will arrive almost a year after the spacecraft flew to the space station and returned without humans in March. It completed a critical demonstration mission for NASA on its second trial after a software failure that delayed a similar test flight in 2019.

Boeing and NASA hoped to be able to fly a manned mission after engineers fixed an issue encountered during a Starliner test flight last March. Including several failures of onboard thrusters during the spacecraft's launch into orbit that Starliner boss Mark Nappi attributed to debris.

"We are currently targeting a launch date of early February 2023," Steve Stich, head of the NASA program overseeing the development of the Starliner, told reporters at a joint press conference with Boeing.

"The manned Starliner capsule is expected to integrate with the Atlas 5 rocket in November," Nappi said. This could be done after NASA approved Boeing's fix for the propulsion issue. The Atlas 5 launch vehicle was built by a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The eight-day mission, transporting NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the station and back, will mark the final test mission before NASA can certify the Starliner for their routine astronaut mission.

Once certified, the capsule will be NASA's second choice for carrying astronauts to and from the station, joining SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, which was already certified in 2020.

Boeing is now under a fixed-price NASA contract worth $4.5 billion for the development of the Starliner and six routine missions following the spacecraft's certification.

According to Boeing in July, the change in launch schedule and engineering improvements resulting from the Starliner test mission last March cost Boeing USD 93 million, bringing Boeing's total costs associated with the Starliner to USD 688 million since the plane's space test failure in 2019.