NASA plans manned Starliner flights to the ISS from 2028

According to plans by the US space agency Nasa, the crisis-plagued spaceship “Starliner” is scheduled to bring astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) again in 2028. Previously, an unmanned test mission with the spacecraft developed and built by the US company Boeing was planned for this year or early 2027, NASA boss Jared Isaacman said at a press conference.

"We have worked closely with Boeing to address the issues identified on previous Starliner flights, and we plan to return this spacecraft to the International Space Station and future commercial destinations," Isaacman said. Parts of the spaceship would be redesigned for this.

The “Starliner” project has been plagued by crises for a long time

The “Starliner” was developed by Boeing on behalf of NASA as an alternative to the “Crew Dragon” by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX to bring astronauts to the ISS. But the project faced several setbacks and years of delays. Manned test flights were repeatedly postponed due to technical problems with the spacecraft and rocket.

In 2024, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Barry Wilmore flew to the ISS in the “Starliner”. They were actually only supposed to stay for about a week. However, due to technical problems with the Starliner, NASA decided for safety reasons to let it return to Earth with another spacecraft and only around nine months later. NASA later classified the mishap as a “Type A incident,” the space agency’s highest category for an incident.

For years, NASA has set itself the goal of having at least two options for manned flights into space. Currently, SpaceX is primarily in use with its "Falcon" rockets and "Dragon" spacecraft for NASA, but according to the company, these could be mothballed in just a few years if SpaceX's Starship, which is currently still in the test phase, can routinely carry out manned flights.