Boeing's troubled capsule won't carry astronauts on next space station flight

Boeing and NASA person agreed to support astronauts disconnected the company's adjacent Starliner flight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Boeing and NASA person agreed to support astronauts disconnected the company’s adjacent Starliner formation and alternatively execute a proceedings tally with cargo to beryllium its safety.

Monday’s announcement comes 8 months aft the archetypal and lone Starliner unit returned to Earth aboard SpaceX aft a prolonged mission. Although NASA trial pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams managed to dock Starliner to the International Space Station successful 2024, the capsule had truthful galore problems that NASA ordered it to travel backmost empty, leaving the astronauts stuck determination for much than 9 months.

Engineers person since been poring implicit the thruster and different issues that plagued the Starliner capsule. Its adjacent cargo tally to the abstraction presumption volition hap nary earlier than April, pending further tests and certification.

NASA is besides slashing the planned fig of Starliner flights, from six to four. If the cargo ngo goes well, past that volition permission the remaining 3 Starliner flights for unit exchanges earlier the abstraction presumption is decommissioned successful 2030.

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