Starliner: NASA plans an uncrewed flight in late 2026 before handing Boeing’s capsule back to astronauts in 2028

The facts

On 28 September 2026, NASA and Boeing presented the new plan for returning the Starliner capsule to flight. First step: Starliner-1, an uncrewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS), which “has the potential to fly in December of this year or January 2027,” according to the agency’s press release. The aim is to verify the thermal modifications made to the spacecraft and to gather the performance data needed to qualify it.

If that flight goes well, astronauts will return on board. “Our current plan is to return astronauts on Starliner-2 by 2028,” says NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in the press release; according to Space.com, Boeing representatives specified that this launch would probably target mid-2028. According to Spaceflight Now, astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg will command that mission, and his crewmates will be named later.

NASA also announces that it intends to exercise the options for a fifth and a sixth round trip to the ISS, and that it will work with Boeing and United Launch Alliance (ULA) to certify the Vulcan rocket, which is due to take over after the last Atlas V flight. According to Space.com, Dana Weigel, NASA’s manager of low-Earth orbit operations, put the total cost of the spacecraft improvements and the Vulcan certification at $359 million.

In France: no precise date, and therefore no launch time in Paris time, has yet been set for Starliner-1; NASA only mentions December 2026 or January 2027.

What went wrong in 2024

Starliner’s first crewed flight, the CFT test flight, lifted off on 5 June 2024 for a mission planned to last about ten days. During the approach to the station it suffered helium leaks and thruster failures, Spaceflight Now recalls. The capsule came back empty three months later, and its two passengers, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, returned in March 2025 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon. According to the same site, an independent review board subsequently classed the episode as a close call.

In February 2026, NASA’s investigation team published its findings, along with 61 recommendations addressed to the agency. The 28 September press release picks out the essentials: the attitude control thrusters on the service module operated outside the range for which they had been qualified, which led to the loss of control observed during the flight. Ground tests showed that these faults stemmed from a combination of factors, including the thermal environment and certain design characteristics.

NASASpaceFlight details the mechanism: heat and contact with the oxidiser can cause a valve seal to swell, spilling out of its housing and slowing the arrival of nitrogen tetroxide in the thruster.

A test flight to validate the repairs

Boeing has already made thermal modifications to the service module, and this is what Starliner-1 must evaluate first. NASA presents it as a “technical evaluation mission”: checking the thermal environment, obtaining the data needed for qualification and measuring the risk that remains before crewed flights. “We’ll do a series of on-orbit demonstrations and tests, stress the thrusters, and we’ll take that set of data coming out of the mission combined with redesign,” Dana Weigel explained, according to Spaceflight Now.

The other fixes will come after this flight. NASA and Boeing are planning a new design for the service module thruster valves, to remedy the seal spilling out. Boeing will also install new thrusters and batteries on the capsule, and will slightly modify the parachute system, the press release states. According to Spaceflight Now, the valves of all twelve of the capsule’s manoeuvring thrusters will be replaced. As for the helium leaks, Space.com reports that the seal material has been changed.

The launch vehicle question

Starliner has always launched on an Atlas V, and this is where the next chapter will be decided. According to Spaceflight Now, only about half a dozen of these rockets remain in ULA’s inventory, and NASASpaceFlight points out that their production is ending. According to Space.com, the Starliner-1 to Starliner-4 missions will launch on Atlas V, while Starliner-5 and Starliner-6 will have to fly on Vulcan, which is not yet certified for crewed flights.

These last two flights change the balance of the contract. Signed in 2014 for six missions to the ISS, it had been cut back at the end of 2025 to three crewed flights plus two options, Ciel & Espace recalls, which was then announcing a flight without astronauts from April 2026; in January 2026, the Cité de l’espace (Toulouse) was still saying “April 2026 at the earliest.” In the same month, Futura noted that this return to flight was prompting “questions about the point of continuing to develop this vehicle.” With these options exercised, the plan once again counts six missions, numbered Starliner-1 to Starliner-6 in the detail reported by Space.com.

Why it matters

What is at stake is first of all access to orbit. “SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule is currently the only operational American spacecraft for carrying astronauts,” Spaceflight Now recalls. According to the same site, NASA wants to bring Boeing back into the game to guarantee flights to the ISS until the end of the station, planned for 2030, and then to future commercial stations. Yet, according to Space.com, SpaceX plans to retire Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 around the same time; on 19 September 2026, NASA just ordered three additional missions from it (Crew-15 to Crew-17) for $946 million.

The French public knows this dependence well: it was aboard a Crew Dragon that ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 13 February 2026, for the Crew-12 mission, CNES recalls. A second certified American spacecraft would widen the transport options to the station during its final years of operation.

The stakes are industrial too. After a crewed test flight that came back without its crew, Starliner-1 will show whether the engineers’ analysis holds up in real conditions; Vulcan’s certification will then decide whether the programme can go beyond the last Atlas Vs.

Archive note

• 28 September 2026: NASA announces an uncrewed flight, Starliner-1, in December 2026 or January 2027, followed by the return of astronauts on Starliner-2 by 2028.
• The agency intends to exercise the options for a fifth and a sixth flight, and to have United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket certified for crewed flights.
• Warren “Woody” Hoburg will command Starliner-2; the other crew members will be named later.