First manned Starliner mission now delayed to April 2024
In a press release yesterday that outlined the updates to NASA’s scheduled manned missions to ISS, the agency confirmed that the first manned Starliner mission has now been delayed one more month, from March until April 2024.
The first crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft, named NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), is planned for no earlier than mid-April. CFT will send NASA astronauts and test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a demonstration flight to prove the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system. Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, spend approximately eight days docked to the space station, and return to Earth with a parachute and airbag-assisted ground landing in the desert of the western United States. [emphasis mine]
The highlighted words underline the fact that this date is merely a target, and has been announced as part of the entire schedule for all the manned missions to ISS next year, fitting it in between two SpaceX crewed Dragon flights. It assumes Boeing will have the spacecraft ready by then, but based on that company’s track record, that assumption remains dangerous. Boeing has a lot of work to do, including parachute drop tests to fix the parachute cords as well as replacing the flammable electric tape installed throughout the capsule.
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In a press release yesterday that outlined the updates to NASA’s scheduled manned missions to ISS, the agency confirmed that the first manned Starliner mission has now been delayed one more month, from March until April 2024.
The first crewed flight of the Starliner spacecraft, named NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), is planned for no earlier than mid-April. CFT will send NASA astronauts and test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a demonstration flight to prove the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner system. Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, spend approximately eight days docked to the space station, and return to Earth with a parachute and airbag-assisted ground landing in the desert of the western United States. [emphasis mine]
The highlighted words underline the fact that this date is merely a target, and has been announced as part of the entire schedule for all the manned missions to ISS next year, fitting it in between two SpaceX crewed Dragon flights. It assumes Boeing will have the spacecraft ready by then, but based on that company’s track record, that assumption remains dangerous. Boeing has a lot of work to do, including parachute drop tests to fix the parachute cords as well as replacing the flammable electric tape installed throughout the capsule.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
So Starship is delayed to June, 2024w555
I did not find anything indicating how many of these capsules they are planning to build.
At this rate, however, I doubt they will get past one.
I can not wait to see if any space start ups buy anything connected with SLS when the program is canceled and everything is sold off at auction.
Hi sippin_bourbon,
I put it through the search engine and unfortunately the only sites that list how many Starliners were built are Wikipedia and Boeing. Boeing only built three of them. Retired the first one used for the pad abort test. Spacecraft#3, Calypso was the one with all the problems in 2019, and Spacecraft#2, still not named, was the one that was used for the last test a year ago.
After the recent posts by Boeing, I think the Starliners will only do their six flights per contract.
There is no way I would fly on this thing given its unvalidated IN REAL LIFE status and Boeing and NASA’s track records of late. I find it criminal how recklessly they now proceed with Man Rated programs like this. The process should ALWAYS involve multiple unmanned validation flights PROVING robust reliability before you risk putting a crew in a vehicle, but they seem perfectly willing to just roll the dice nowadays. Very disturbing.
MDN: You mean NASA and Boeing should be held to the same safety standards NASA demanded of SpaceX? Are you kidding? That would be so wrong! NASA is the government and must always be given a pass. And Boeing has been its buddy for decades, and sends gobs of cash to the campaigns of congressmen and senators. We mustn’t demand anything of them either.