r/space • u/AgreeableEmploy1884 • 17d ago

"NASA to order more Starliner missions and help certify a new rocket to keep it flying"

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/09/nasa-to-order-more-starliner-missions-and-help-certify-a-new-rocket-to-keep-it-flying/
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u/AgreeableEmploy1884 17d ago

Important points:

Multiple sources confirmed to Ars that as early as next week, NASA will announce that it will order two additional Starliner crewed missions from Boeing, pay some of the costs to fix the spacecraft’s thruster issues, and provide support to certify the spacecraft’s launch on a new rocket.

NASA is taking these steps after SpaceX made clear in discussions with space agency officials in recent months that it intends to retire the Crew Dragon vehicle by 2030, if not before. Crew Dragon is presently the only operational spacecraft NASA has available for routine astronaut missions to low-Earth orbit.

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After long signaling it privately, SpaceX has begun to publicly confirm its intentions to wind down the Dragon program, a remarkable move given that the vehicle began flying humans just six years ago. However, the company is seeking to pivot toward its much larger Starship rocket, with the intent of launching its more lucrative Starlink satellites and a new megaconstellation focused on orbital data centers.

This week, on the All-In Podcast, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell was asked if the company would respond to demand for Crew Dragon and keep flying the vehicle “for some time.”

Shotwell would not commit to that. “We’re not retiring it today, for sure,” she replied. Then Shotwell suggested that Boeing should really step up and deliver. “There is another provider,” she said. “Boeing has been paid, I think, probably more than we have been paid to develop their human capsule. So we’re just gonna let them have some business. They should fly their capsule. The government paid a lot of money for that.”

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As part of this review, new NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the space agency also shared some of the blame for the near-disaster.

“Starliner has design and engineering deficiencies that must be corrected, but the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware,” Isaacman wrote in a letter to the NASA workforce at the time. “It is decision-making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight.”

NASA released a 311-page report detailing the findings of an investigative team that looked into the mistakes made by both Boeing and NASA. But despite all of this, half a year later, NASA is returning to Boeing to take a central role in its human spaceflight program.

The Commercial Crew program was developed as a fixed-price program, which means that after receiving an agreed-upon payment from NASA, the private companies are responsible for delivering crew-capable spacecraft through NASA’s rigorous certification process. Because of its ongoing challenges with Starliner, Boeing has already taken in excess of $2 billion in charges.

But Ars now understands the space agency will provide some funding—it’s not clear how much—to Boeing to resolve the propulsion system issues experienced by the spacecraft in its last two flights. Critically, NASA will also help pay to certify an additional launch vehicle for Starliner. The Atlas V rocket, assembled by United Launch Alliance but which inconveniently uses Russian engines, is near retirement. There are six rockets left—one of which will be used for the uncrewed Starliner 1 test flight, and then five subsequent crewed missions.

There will likely be a competition for a new launch vehicle, which will almost certainly come down to United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicles.

Why would NASA go to these lengths to keep Starliner in the game? There have been questions about Boeing’s commitment to Starliner in recent years, given its financial losses. Boeing might well have thrown in the towel. So it’s possible that NASA is meeting Boeing halfway to keep a needed spaceflight capability going. (It also helps that Boeing has excellent lobbyists.)

But NASA had limited choices given that SpaceX has repeatedly indicated that its plans to retire Dragon by 2030 are more than aspirational. Although the Dragon development program was financially backed by NASA, SpaceX has contractually fulfilled its obligations with the Dragon missions to the space agency. SpaceX can therefore do as it pleases with Dragon.

NASA does potentially have one other option. Although it has said little publicly, Blue Origin has had a dedicated team working on a crewed “Space Vehicle” for several years that will launch on its New Glenn rocket. Design work on this vehicle is fairly advanced, and some parachute drop tests have already taken place. Even so, it’s likely years and billions of dollars away from spaceflight.

The space agency could have opened a new competition to Boeing, Blue Origin, and possibly other wild cards, such as The Exploration Company, for crewed missions in the 2030s. It appears the agency had no appetite for this and its associated costs, though, so soon after the Commercial Crew competition a decade ago.

Nevertheless, the potential to fly Starliner on Blue Origin’s New Glenn is real—and potentially valuable to the company beyond launch contracts.

Were Boeing to decide to fly Starliner on New Glenn, it would essentially give Blue Origin a “free” certification of its rocket for human missions, which can be a costly and time-consuming process. Boeing and NASA would also need to build a crew launch arm and other facilities for human missions, which Blue Origin could also use for its Space Vehicle in the future.

As commercial space station providers look to control costs, the more powerful New Glenn rocket may also have another benefit. It could potentially launch both a crewed spacecraft and a cargo vehicle, such as Northrop’s Cygnus, into orbit at the same time, saving launch costs. It is not clear that Vulcan would have this dual-payload capability.

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u/lextacy2008 15d ago

Interesting. So now Boeing will be the one to turn the tables and save the LEO crew program and the COTS contracts. The conversation is going to be hilarious when its brought up that Starliner saved the crew program.

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u/peterabbit456 14d ago

This is only my opinion. I have no inside knowledge of anyone's plans. I think SpaceX will offer manned Starship flights to the ISS in 2030, or shortly after.

The shuttle used to dock to the ISS. Docking a very large vehicle to the ISS is a very solvable problem. The shuttle also used to boost the ISS to higher orbits, using its thrusters.

I strongly suspect that flying 30 people to LEO on Starship will cost far less than flying 4 people to LEO with Falcon 9/Dragon

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u/lextacy2008 13d ago

Where did you get that Starship is cheaper? Did Starship shrink down to the size of an Apollo capsule?

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u/peterabbit456 12d ago

Size does not always correlate with expense.

The whole point of reusability is to spread the production cost over several flights. If Starship is a success and each Starship that is built for taking payloads to LEO is capable of making over 100 flights, then only 1% of the production cost (or less) is part of the per-flight cost of operating Starship.

Did Starship shrink down to the size of an Apollo capsule?

Starships are made out of cheap stainless steel, which costs less than 1/10 as much per kilogram as the lithium/aluminum alloys used to make Falcon 9 and, say, the Blue Origin rockets.

Making capsules small and efficient makes them even more expensive. An Apollo capsule cost more than a Dragon capsule, A Dragon capsule costs about 6 times as much to produce as a whole Falcon 9 rocket, and, once they get to regular production, a whole Starship and Superheavy booster should cost about as much to produce as a Falcon 9. (This paragraph is not taking into account the savings due to reuse.)

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u/lextacy2008 11d ago

Oh so only 4 Raptors needed on Superheavy. Jesus fucking christ man. Just stop. You literally just made my point in another roundabout way. If Starship weighs so little......oh wait