To say that Boeing’s Starliner program did not go as planned would be an understatement of the century. The Starliner spacecraft, which NASA included in the Commercial Crew Program with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, failed to meet expectations in almost every way. The spacecraft was already supposed to take human astronauts to and from the International Space Station, as was the SpaceX vehicle, but it has not yet completed its unmanned test mission to the ISS.
Now, as SpaceNews reports, Starliner will again miss the launch date, according to NASA. Space agency officials recently offered an update on their active programs, revealing that the SpaceX Crew Dragon will launch its second official manned mission by the end of April, with April 20 being the earliest possible date for that mission. Meanwhile, Starliner will lose its April 2 release date by at least another week.
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The Starliner program has been an absolute disaster in so many ways that it’s actually painful to remember that NASA threw $ 4.2 billion in taxpayer money at Boeing to build the spacecraft. He saw delay after delay, and once the vehicle was finally ready to travel into space on its unmanned test mission, the spacecraft came out, burned a pile of fuel it was not supposed to burn, and had to it returns to Earth without ever reaching the orbiting laboratory.
NASA and Boeing played it off as if the mission was a “success,” despite the fact that Starliner did not do what it was supposed to do. In the months that followed, NASA carefully analyzed the Starliner and its development and came up with a huge list of things that Boeing wanted to address. The company has finally ticked all these boxes, but it seems that the spacecraft is not ready for its time in the spotlight.
The potential new release date is no earlier than April 9th. A week’s delay may not seem like much, but it’s just a symptom of what is clearly a bigger problem. Keep in mind that Starliner should have been completed by 2017. That was four years ago, and the spacecraft has not yet completed an unmanned mission, much less a manned space trip with a full complement of astronaut passengers. .
As for NASA, it already has a capable crew vehicle, which it can use whenever it wants in the form of the Crew Dragon. The space agency may not be in a hurry to add another vehicle to its fleet, but the fact that Boeing is being paid billions (and even more because of years of delays) for not keeping its promises is a bit difficult. stomach.
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Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games over the past decade, covering breaking news and trends in VR, portable devices, smartphones and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as technical editor at The Daily Dot and was featured in USA Today, Time.com, and countless other websites and prints. His love of reporting is second only to gambling addiction.