5 minute read•Updated 7:16 PM EDT, Sun July 13, 2025
NASA officials say there's a “strong chance” that Boeing’s next CST-100 Starliner test flight could launch without a crew onboard, as teams continue to work through a series of technical issues with the spacecraft’s propulsion and thermal systems.
Latest Update
At a July 10 media briefing ahead of the upcoming SpaceX Crew-11 launch to the International Space Station (ISS), Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, provided an update on Starliner’s progress following its first crewed flight last year, which revealed several hardware concerns.
“We really are working toward a flight as soon as early next year...Ultimately, our goal is to get into crew rotation flights with Starliner and those would start no earlier than the second rotation slot at the end of next year.” - Steve Stich, Manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
While that timeline sets the stage for operational crew flights in late 2026 at the earliest, NASA is now considering a cargo-only test mission in early 2026 to validate ongoing fixes; particularly to Starliner’s helium leak problems and the thermal management of its thrusters and surrounding enclosures, informally known as "doghouses."
“We’re still looking at that, whether it will be a cargo flight or not. I think there’s a lot of advantages, I would say, to flying a cargo flight...There’s a strong chance we’ll fly a cargo flight first...We still haven’t made that decision yet." - Steve Stich, Manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
He pointed to SpaceX’s own Crew Dragon development path, where cargo missions played a pivotal role in refining the system before human launches began.
Testing Starliner’s Fixes
Boeing and NASA are currently testing alternative seal materials that could help prevent the helium leaks observed on previous flights. Additionally, a Starliner thruster is undergoing a new round of firings at NASA’s White Sands facility in New Mexico, with engineers studying how performance is affected by different pulse durations and frequencies.
This testing will culminate in an “integrated doghouse test” as early as next month, in which multiple thrusters inside the same thermal enclosure will be fired together.
“We’re making a lot of progress in understanding the thermal performance,” - Steve Stich, Manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
Tthe team is also evaluating design tweaks to better dissipate heat away from the thrusters.
ISS Crew Rotation To Be Extended
The Starliner update came as part of a broader briefing on Crew-11, SpaceX’s next Crew Dragon mission to the ISS. Currently scheduled for launch no earlier than July 31, Crew-11 will send four astronauts from NASA, JAXA, and Roscosmos to the orbiting laboratory, relieving Crew-10, which launched in March.
However, there’s growing uncertainty about how long Crew-11 will remain in space. In May, NASA signaled it may reduce crew sizes to three astronauts and extend stays from six months to eight due to mounting financial pressures, including proposed cuts to its fiscal year 2026 budget.
“We have started that work with SpaceX,” to certify Crew Dragon for extended-duration missions - Steve Stich, Manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
The spacecraft currently has approval to stay docked to the station for up to 210 days, but NASA is working to gather and evaluate data needed to stretch that further.
While the current plan for Crew-11 is a six-month stay, “We can extend the mission in real time as needed.” - Steve Stich, Manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
The Crew-11 spacecraft, Crew Dragon Endeavour, will be making its sixth flight.
Eyes on the Future and the Budget
A reconciliation bill passed last week includes $1.25 billion over five years for ISS operations, aimed at offsetting some of the proposed budget cuts.
“We’re still evaluating how that’s going to affect operations going forward, but it’s a positive step,” - Ken Bowersox, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Space Operations
Reducing the cadence of missions by extending crew durations could mean fewer overall crew rotation flights are flown before the expected ISS retirement in 2030. However, some of those remaining flights, he said, might be redirected to new commercial space stations currently in development.
“Right now we’re taking it one step at a time, and the first step in front of us is Crew-11,” - Steve Stich, Manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
As Starliner continues down its path toward operational certification, NASA's dual-provider approach to commercial crew transport remains a top priority; but Boeing still has hurdles to clear before astronauts regularly fly on its spacecraft.
