What happened
Boeing's Starliner capsule is scheduled to make its first crewed flight from Florida's Cape Canaveral on Monday night, launched atop an Atlas V rocket. The test flight, following years of delay, will carry veteran NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore to the International Space Station. NASA contracted with Boeing and Elon Musk's SpaceX in 2014 to develop spacecraft to shuttle astronauts to the ISS; SpaceX has completed nine crewed missions since 2020.
Who said what
SpaceX has delivered, but NASA wants two different ISS transport vehicles because "you're just one flight away from some anomaly that you didn't catch," said NASA program manager Steve Stich to The Wall Street Journal. "Spaceflight is risky" and "unforgiving of mistakes," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson added. "NASA is integrated with Boeing to make sure that this flight is as safe as possible."
What next?
Starliner should reach the ISS in 26 hours and return the astronauts to Earth eight days later, touching down on land in the U.S. Southwest. Assuming the test flight goes well, Boeing will complete at least six crewed missions for NASA, alternating with SpaceX.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
August 30 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday’s political cartoons include Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump's role reversal and King George III
-
5 bullseye cartoons about the reasons for mass shootingsCartoons Artists take on gun worship, a price paid, and more
-
Lisa Cook and Trump's battle for control the US FedTalking Point The president's attempts to fire one of the Federal Reserve's seven governor is represents 'a stunning escalation' of his attacks on the US central bank
-
SpaceX breaks Starship losing streak in 10th testspeed read The Starship rocket's test flight was largely successful, deploying eight dummy satellites during its hour in space
-
NASA is moving away from tracking climate changeThe Explainer Climate missions could be going dark
-
Why does the US want to put nuclear reactors on the moon?Today's Big Question The plans come as NASA is facing significant budget cuts
-
Answers to how life on Earth began could be stuck on MarsUnder the Radar Donald Trump plans to scrap Nasa's Mars Sample Return mission – stranding test tubes on the Red Planet and ceding potentially valuable information to China
-
Why is Nasa facing a crisis?Today's Big Question Trump administration proposes 25% cut to national space agency's budget in 'extinction-level event'
-
Life after space: how will Nasa's stranded astronauts cope?In the Spotlight Sunita 'Suni' Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore are headed back to Earth after nine months on the ISS – but their greatest challenge may still lie ahead
-
Killer space rocksFeature The threat to Earth from a newly discovered asteroid has faded. Others could be headed our way.
-
Spherex: Nasa's cutting-edge telescope searching for the origins of lifeThe Explainer New mission to unlock the secrets of the universe with most comprehensive map of the cosmos yet
