Starliner is in serious trouble, can't fly while NASA&SpaceX Dragon launch date scheduled to ISS Five weeks after Boeing's Starliner spacecraft returned from a largely successful test flight to the International Space Station, Boeing annonced they were working to be hardware ready in support of the company’s crewed flight test this year. But now, NASA and Boeing just revealed they are targeting a launch date as early as February of 2023. At the same time, NASA has settled on October 3rd for the SpaceX fifth operational astronaut launch, a mission that will also mark the first time a Russian cosmonaut flies on Crew Dragon. What a heck! Is this a Boeing joke? How are they justifying Starliner? Let's bore into today’s episode of the Alpha Tech channel. After all the promises, Boeing's first astronaut mission for NASA won't lift off until next year. This probably didn't come as a shock anymore as Starliner is a name that has been too familiar with delays or failures. And honestly, while it continues to be a long slide for Boeing, that's safe for everyone involved. The eight-day mission, transporting NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the station and back, would mark the final test mission before NASA can certify Starliner for routine astronaut missions. Anyway, NASA has SpaceX to fill the gap. Last week, SpaceX and NASA have settled on October 3rd for the company’s fifth operational astronaut launch. Crew-5 will be SpaceX’s eighth astronaut launch overall, seventh astronaut mission to the space station, and sixth astronaut transport mission for NASA. Once docked to the ISS, Crew-5 will take over from Crew-4, who will depart the station soon after in their own Crew Dragon and return to Earth sometime in October. Due to a string of issues that have caused years of delays for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which was developed simultaneously alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon as part of the NASA Commercial Crew Program, SpaceX has been tasked with continuously ensuring the presence of NASA astronauts at the ISS since November 2020. Equivalent to Crew Dragon’s May 2020 Demo-2 mission, Boeing’s first crewed Starliner flight test (CFT) is scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) February 2023. SpaceX is thus guaranteed to be NASA’s sole path to the ISS until Q3 or Q4 2023, but that period could easily stretch into 2024 if Boeing runs into any additional issues with Starliner over the next year. Regardless, surely you are curious as to why Boeing had such a successful flight in May, NASA even predicted that Starliner is: “A great vehicle for crew transportation” but it now took such a long time for the next flight. To be fair, the company notched a big milestone with OFT-2, an uncrewed shakeout cruise that showed Starliner can get safely to and from the ISS. But the six-day flight did not go perfectly smoothly, as the newly announced CFT delay attests. Starliner is in serious trouble, can't fly while NASA&SpaceX Dragon launch date scheduled to ISS