Boeing Starliner (CST-100) Master Update Thread - April 2019 onwards

[russianhalo117]

Seems like ULA is saving some of these for Starliner Launches

Lukas C. H.
@GewoonLukas_
On November 19th, ULA placed the Atlas V Common Core Booster for the LA-04 mission on the Mobile Launch Platform, kicking off the launch campaign. Including LA-04, there are 11 Atlas V launches remaining. 5 of these will be for Amazon Leo, the other 6 will be for Starliner.

https://twitter.com/GewoonLukas_/status/1992630230734065985

The 6 for Starliner are wholly owned by Boeing directly which the parents of ULA have a right to do. ULA is only a contractor. Boeing would have to sell them back to ULA or directly to another customer if Starliner is cancelled at any point.

[DanClemmensen]

The 6 for Starliner are wholly owned by Boeing directly which the parents of ULA have a right to do. ULA is only a contractor. Boeing would have to sell them back to ULA or directly to another customer if Starliner is cancelled at any point.

I do not disbelieve you, but do you have a reference for Boeing ownership?

Whoever owns them, there is a potential problem with selling them. They are nominally in the N22 configuration. Furthermore their SRBs are (apparently) the older Aerojet AJ-60A instead of the newer GEM 60, presumably because the older configuration was human-certified, and the centaurs uses two motors instead of one. ULA says all the boosters have been built, but I have zero insight into whether or not all of this other stuff is already in inventory and whether or not additional SRBs could be manufactured. In particular LEO (Kuiper) uses the 551 configuration and would expect to use five GEM 60 not two AJ-60A.

None of this is directly related to the Starliner spacecraft, but it is relevant to the state of Boeing's Starliner program and its value to any potential buyer.

[StraumliBlight]

NASA, Boeing Modify Commercial Crew Contract [Nov 24]

In 2014, NASA awarded a Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract to Boeing to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station with its Starliner spacecraft. As part of its contract, Boeing was awarded up to six crewed flights to the orbital complex.

After a thorough evaluation, NASA and Boeing have mutually agreed to modify the contract. As part of the modification, the definitive order has been adjusted to four missions, with the remaining two available as options. The next Starliner flight, known as Starliner-1, will be used by NASA to deliver necessary cargo to the orbital laboratory and allow in-flight validation of the system upgrades implemented following the Crew Flight Test mission last year.  NASA and Boeing are targeting no earlier than April 2026 to fly the uncrewed Starliner-1 pending completion of rigorous test, certification, and mission readiness activities.  Following Starliner certification, and a successful Starliner-1 mission, Starliner will fly up to three crew rotations to the International Space Station.

“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “This modification allows NASA and Boeing to focus on safely certifying the system in 2026, execute Starliner’s first crew rotation when ready, and align our ongoing flight planning for future Starliner missions based on station’s operational needs through 2030.”

Certification of Boeing’s Starliner remains important to NASA’s goal of sustained human presence in low Earth orbit and dissimilar redundancy is essential to supporting the agency’s goals and international obligations.

[yg1968]

https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1993092300210122921

[AndrewM]

Both of these FCC filings were granted on November 24th.

1881-EX-ST-2025 [Sep 26]

This STA is necessary for command, tracking, and analysis of the Boeing CST-100 Crew Capsule mission to the International Space Station.

Operation Start Date: 12/20/2025
Operation End Date: 06/16/2026

1882-EX-ST-2025

Application supporting CST-100 mission Landing and Alternate Landing Sites

[...]

Wilcox Playa, Arizona
Dugway Proving Ground, Utah
Edwards Air Force Base, California
White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico

ODAR and Tech Description are restricted.

All 3 of the PCM IDVs show modifications of $0 on November 21st as "SUPPLEMENTAL AGREEMENT FOR WORK WITHIN SCOPE" likely addressing the aforementioned shifts.
PCM-1
PCM-2
PCM-3 through -6

[thespacecow]

Safety panel says NASA should have taken Starliner incident more seriously

Precourt said officials from Boeing and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which oversees the agency’s Starliner contract, “were signaling return on Starliner was the expected outcome” for Wilmore and Williams. “Other NASA entities in the decision process were not in concurrence,” Precourt continued. “As a result, there was significant stress on the workforce, with many believing the sole objective was to determine a means by which we could enable crew return on the Starliner.”

It would have been better, Precourt and other panel members said Friday, if NASA made a formal declaration of an in-flight “mishap” or “high visibility close call” soon after the Starliner spacecraft’s troubled rendezvous with the ISS. Such a declaration would have elevated responsibility for the investigation to NASA’s safety office.

“The ASAP finding is the lack of a declared in-flight mishap or high visibility close call contributed to an extensive, excessive … period of time where risk ownership and the decision-making authority were unclear,” Precourt said.

[catdlr]

Moderator:

Just a reminder that any discussions about posts in this Update thread should be quoted and answered in the Discussion thread. I recently moved about half a dozen posts from here to that thread.  I know the urge is to respond quickly, but copy and paste the quoted post from the thread over to the Discussion thread and complete your response there.

Tony

[catdlr]

https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/2017278783024242835

National Air and Space Museum
@airandspace
·
Announcing the winners of the Museum’s 2026 Michael Collins Trophy for Current Achievement: The crew of the Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test

Astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore’s extensive spaceflight experience prepared them to not just adapt but excel with personal strength, grace, and competence when their eight-day mission turned into one that lasted more than nine months. #CollinsTrophy

[AndrewM]

Starliner has still not received crew certification and Boeing is still anticipating Starliner-1 & -2 to occur in 2026. Starliner-1 was targeting April according to NASA but the filing below shows H1. Boeing has also transferred $137M from potential termination liabilities into capitalized precontract costs.

From Boeing's 10-K SEC filing on January 30th.

Commercial Crew
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has contracted us to design and build the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to transport crews to the International Space Station (ISS) and in the second quarter of 2022, we successfully completed the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test. The Crewed Flight Test launched on June 5, 2024, and docked with the ISS. Its return to Earth was delayed to allow time to perform further testing of propulsion system anomalies and returned to Earth uncrewed in September 2024. During 2024, we increased the reach-forward loss by $523 primarily to reflect schedule delays and higher testing and certification costs as well as higher costs for post certification missions. We recorded an immaterial reach-forward loss in 2025. We and the customer are planning to launch an uncrewed mission during the first half of 2026 and a crewed mission later in 2026. We are continuing to work toward crew certification and resolve the propulsion system anomalies. At December 31, 2025, we had approximately $544 of capitalized precontract costs and $4 of potential termination liabilities to suppliers related to unauthorized future missions. Risk remains that we may record additional losses in future periods.

According to SAM, the end dates for all 3 PCM contracts has been extended.
The PCM-1 contract was scheduled to end March 31, 2025 and now is June 30, 2026.
The PCM-2 contract was scheduled to end March 31, 2026 and now is May 31, 2027.
The PCM-3 through -6 contract was scheduled to end March 31, 2027 and now is March 31, 2028.

[ChrisC]

From this morning's Crew-12 pre-launch press conference:

Steve Stich (Crew-12 Prelaunch): Will decide in the summer whether Crew-13 or Starliner-2 will be the next crew rotation mission in the Fall.

Also they are still targeting NET April for Starliner-1, but they do still have technical work to close out.  He then went into quite a bit of detail about seals and thrusters, which can be heard in the link above.  (can't transcribe right now)