Speaking following the return of its astronauts, the agency also confirmed it’s aiming for just one more uncrewed flight before it begins regular services to the space laboratory.
The huge vote of confidence comes after months of near silence from both NASA and Boeing as to whether Starliner would ever return to service.
Starliner blasted off to the ISS in June last year with two astronauts, but was forced to return uncrewed following issues with its thrusters and helium leaks.
It meant passengers Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams spent nine months in space and were forced to come home on a rival SpaceX Dragon capsule in one of the most high-profile safety incidents in NASA’s history.
“What we’d like to do is that one flight and then get into a crew rotation flight,” explained Steve Stitch, the space agency’s commercial crew program manager.
“So, the next flight up would really test all the changes we’re making to the vehicle, and then the next fight beyond that, we really need to get Boeing into a crew rotation. So, that’s the strategy.”
The changes include modifications to its propulsion system, which suffered helium leaks and thruster failures on its outbound trip to the ISS.
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However, despite the problems, Starliner did return safely to Earth in a vindication for Boeing’s engineers, and the aerospace giant was reportedly confident it could have made the trip with Wilmore and Williams.
“The thing that we need to solidify and go test is the prop system in the service module,” he said. “We need to make sure we can eliminate the helium leaks, eliminate the service module thruster issues that we had on docking.
“Even if we were to fly the vehicle without a crew in the return, we want that to be crew-capable. So, we want it to have all the systems in place that that we could fly a crew with.”
Previously, Stitch said NASA had closed out 70 per cent of the in-flight anomalies from last year’s test flight, though the propulsion issues were still being studied.
Wilmore and Williams only returned to Earth on Thursday, after their SpaceX Dragon capsule undocked from the ISS and hurtled through Earth’s atmosphere at 28,000km/h, splashing down off the coast of Florida.
The return came after the Falcon 9 was sent to retrieve the pair, following SpaceX teams fixing a hydraulic system issue that postponed the flight initially.
While NASA’s Ken Bowersox told ABC News in the US there was a low probability of a serious failure, they nonetheless decided not to take the risk.
Their return was also sped up by weeks after SpaceX swapped the mission capsule destined to be used by Crew 10 to a previously used model.
Adam Thorn
Adam is a journalist who has worked for more than 40 prestigious media brands in the UK and Australia. Since 2005, his varied career has included stints as a reporter, copy editor, feature writer and editor for publications as diverse as Fleet Street newspaper The Sunday Times, fashion bible Jones, media and marketing website Mumbrella as well as lifestyle magazines such as GQ, Woman’s Weekly, Men’s Health and Loaded. He joined Momentum Media in early 2020 and currently writes for Australian Aviation and World of Aviation.
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