Following an engine test mishap, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner will likely perform two crucial test flights next year, instead of this year as planned, while SpaceX is still planning to perform its first uncrewed demonstration test in November 2018.
Boeing vice president John Mulholland said, “The resulting schedule that we have will support an uncrewed flight test in late 2018 or early 2019.” And NASA’s new schedule backs up Boeing.
But as The Verge notes, this is just another delay pushing the envelop closer to the date when U.S. astronauts will not have a ride to the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is a mission to return human spaceflight launches to U.S. soil, using private, aerospace industry companies, to provide safe, reliable and cost-effective access to low-Earth orbit on systems that meet the agency’s safety and mission requirements.
Boeing and SpaceX were given contracts to develop the commercial crew capsules, but the schedule for readiness has been pushed back several times, edging ever closer to “zero hour,” when the U.S. will be without a ride.
This latest setback comes after a GAO report issued two weeks ago that said there would be delays in NASA certification. With the contract NASA has with Russia to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station due to expire in November 2019, it is all the more critical that the U.S. is prepared with their own transportation.
