Boeing resets test schedule for Starliner space taxi; first crewed flight in mid-2019

An artist’s conception shows Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, which is designed to carry astronauts and cargo to and from the International Space Station. (Boeing Illustration)

Last month’s problem with leaky rocket engine valves has forced Boeing to rearrange the sequence of tests for its Starliner space taxi, with the first crewed flight to the International Space Station now planned for no earlier than mid-2019.

John Mulholland, a Boeing vice president who’s program manager for the CST-100 Starliner program, laid out the revised schedule today during a teleconference with journalists.

The current plan calls for an uncrewed Starliner capsule, known as Spacecraft 3, to be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket to the International Space Station in late 2018 or early 2019.

Another capsule, Spacecraft 1, will be put through an uncrewed pad abort test during the first few months of 2019. Assuming that test is successful, Boeing would launch the Starliner’s first crew to the space station aboard yet another Starliner, Spacecraft 2, a month later.

Boeing had planned to start with the pad abort test, which would make use of a “pusher” rocket system designed to throw the capsule clear of its launch vehicle in the event of an emergency. Then it would have done the uncrewed demonstration flight, followed by the crewed demonstration flight, perhaps by the end of 2018.

June’s problem, which cropped up during a hot-fire test of the launch abort system at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, forced a change of plans.

“Several of the abort engine valves failed to fully close” at the end of a 1.5-second test firing, Mulholland said. That resulted in a leak of toxic hypergolic propellant, but no damage to the hardware and no injuries to the test team, he said.