NASA announced plans on Monday to redesign parts of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and launch an uncrewed test flight as soon as December, charting a path toward crewed missions by 2028 under the command of astronaut Woody Hoburg.
Months after NASA leadership condemned the troubled Starliner program following a botched 2024 test flight that left two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station for months, the space agency has unveiled a new operational road map. During a news conference at the Kennedy Space Center on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman laid out the steps required before Boeing can resume human spaceflight operations.
The agency’s primary hurdle involves fixing the technical failures that plagued the inaugural Boeing Crew Flight Test in June 2024. That mission carried NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the orbiting laboratory for what was supposed to be an eight-day stay. Instead, helium leaks and thruster outages forced NASA to return the spacecraft empty.
Engineering Upgrades and the Upcoming December Test Flight
Teams have identified the root causes of those engineering failures and implemented structural modifications across the spacecraft’s systems. Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program, reported that Boeing has implemented fixes on Starliner-1 after pinpointing the triggers behind the helium leaks.
Teams have identified the cause behind the service-module helium leak experienced during Starliner’s test flight and replaced the affected seals with a new material and tighter tolerances in that area.
Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator
Isaacman also noted that Boeing made significant thermal modifications to the service module to lower thruster temperatures. These changes will be tested during an uncrewed cargo flight to the space station as soon as December. If that validation succeeds, a crewed mission could follow in 2028.
Woody Hoburg Named to Command Starliner-2
NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg has been selected to command the crewed Starliner-2 mission. During Monday’s briefing, Hoburg reflected on the endurance of his predecessors, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who ultimately spent 286 days in space before returning aboard a SpaceX vehicle in March 2025.
Transitioning to Vulcan Centaur Rockets and Securing ISS Redundancy
Beyond capsule modifications, Starliner faces a logistical shift in how it reaches orbit. The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets that previously launched the capsule are no longer in production. NASA is now working with Boeing and ULA to certify Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift rockets for crewed missions as a replacement, budgeting an additional $359 million for Starliner upgrades and rocket certification.
The push to operationalize Boeing’s spacecraft is tied directly to the long-term needs of the International Space Station, which is slated for decommissioning in the early 2030s. At present, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is the only operational U.S. vehicle capable of ferrying astronauts to the orbital complex.
However, SpaceX has signaled intentions to eventually retire its Falcon 9 and Dragon platforms to concentrate on its next-generation Starship program. While NASA recently awarded SpaceX a combined $946 million contract for three additional flights covering Crew-15 through Crew-17, space agency leadership maintains that maintaining a secondary provider remains essential for the commercial space economy.
Jared Isaacman, NASA Administrator, emphasized that diversifying transportation options is critical to ensuring long-term mission reliability and reducing the risks associated with relying on a single launch provider.
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