With SpaceX planning to retire its Crew Dragon spacecraft in just a few years, NASA urgently needs to secure another vehicle for crewed missions to and from low Earth orbit. Apparently, the agency is dedicated to making sure Boeing’s Starliner—the infamous spacecraft that left two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station for months—will be ready to fill the gap.
As early as next week, NASA will announce plans to order two more crewed Starliner missions from Boeing, cover part of the cost to fix the spacecraft’s thrusters, and provide support to certify the spacecraft’s launch on a new rocket, sources told Ars Technica. Starliner launches aboard United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, but ULA plans to retire Atlas V after expending the six left in its inventory, all of which are assigned to Starliner missions.
After what happened during Starliner’s first crewed test flight, one might balk at the idea of this spacecraft taking over as the workhorse vehicle for the Commercial Crew program. Starliner faced technical issues before, during, and after the June 2024 flight that carried NASA’s Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore to the ISS. They were only supposed to be there for eight days, but helium leaks and thruster malfunctions forced the capsule to return to Earth without its crew. The astronauts came home nine months later aboard a Crew Dragon.
NASA throws Starliner a lifeline
Despite the mishap, which was covered extensively by media around the globe and inspired much criticism of NASA and Boeing, neither have given up on the spacecraft. In February, NASA said teams had made “great progress” toward fixing Starliner’s technical issues and that the agency hoped to launch an uncrewed mission in April. That never happened.
Getting that uncrewed mission—Starliner-1—off the ground is an essential step toward achieving full operational certification for crewed flights aboard Starliner. The launch target remains “under review,” but if the mission succeeds, Starliner will then be cleared for five subsequent crewed flights, according to Ars.
There’s no telling how long it will be before Starliner launches again, and this beleaguered spacecraft has been a serious money suck. Boeing’s total financial losses from the Starliner program topped $2 billion in 2025, and NASA has spent significantly more on the development and certification of this vehicle than Crew Dragon, which has successfully completed all 13 of its crewed ISS missions.
Today, NASA announced that it has awarded SpaceX a $946 million contract to fly three more crewed ISS missions with Crew Dragon, extending its period of performance through 2030. Still, there’s no reason to believe this contract modification has changed SpaceX’s plans to retire Crew Dragon—it just won’t happen before 2030.
During an appearance on the All-In Podcast this week, SpaceX President and CEO Gwynne Shotwell said that the company is going to let Boeing “have some business.”
“They should fly their capsule. The government paid a lot of money for that. They should be able to use it,” Shotwell said.
If NASA hopes to maintain a presence in low Earth orbit past the end of the decade, the agency will indeed need to use it. As of now, Starliner is the most viable replacement for Crew Dragon.
The modification to SpaceX’s contract has bought NASA some time, but the agency appears willing to do what it takes to get Starliner crew-certified. And with several companies already developing replacements for the ISS, which is also slated for retirement around 2030, NASA needs to assure its commercial partners that astronauts will have a dependable way to travel to and from their orbital outposts.
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