Good news there. IDA-3 is planned to arrive (2018 August or earlier), and possibly be operational, before Starliner's first visit to ISS. Hopefully IDA-2 will already be busy with crew rotation missions (CrewDragon) by then.
Quote from: solartear on 11/09/2016 08:01 pmGood news there. IDA-3 is planned to arrive (2018 August or earlier), and possibly be operational, before Starliner's first visit to ISS. Hopefully IDA-2 will already be busy with crew rotation missions (CrewDragon) by then.Has NASA changed their goals/rules about the number of available docking ports during crew missions? I was under the impression that they considered having 2 open docking ports a requirement. The logic being that if there was a problem docking to 1 they could still use the backup and would lower the risk of terminating the mission.