Boeing, one of two selected contractors for the NASA Commercial Crew program (the other being SpaceX), has developed its spacecraft, named Starliner to deliver astronauts to and from the ISS.

Unfortunately, since inception, this Boeing program has been riddled with issues and delays. The first orbital demo flight, taking place in December 2019, was a failure as while the capsule was safely recovered, multiple serious issues during flight resulted in not completing mission objectives, such as reaching and docking with the ISS.

Due to these issues, Boeing agreed to perform a second orbital flight test at "no cost to the taxpayer" with an estimated US$410 million out-of-pocket expenditure, and while this mission was nominally successful with the spacecraft docking to the ISS and returning safely, multiple serious issues were discovered both pre-launch--causing delays--and during operation including numerous failures of the maneuvering thruster system.

The latest flight of Starliner, the crew flight test launched in 2024 and gained massive media attention as failures in the thruster system resulted in the astronauts getting "stranded" aboard the ISS. After investigation, Boeing and NASA have decided to not risk returning the astronauts on the partially defective Starliner capsule, instead returning them on a different spacecraft. The defective Starliner will return to earth, unmanned.

Looking towards the future, there is currently a planned Starliner-1 mission in the "fully operational phase" of the Starliner Commercial Crew program, scheduled for no earlier than August, 2025. This mission, if it takes place, will begin a series of regular operational missions where Starliner transports four astronauts up to the ISS on a schedule.

Generally though, there are serious doubts about the future of the Boeing Starliner program. For example, NASA has already double-booked the Starliner-1 Flight with the SpaceX-11 Flight in anticipation that Boeing will not be ready in time.

The technical issues, and more critically, the apparent inability of Boeing to fix known technical issues throw serious doubt upon Boeing's engineering skill and commitment to the program, making it likely that, for example, NASA insists on a fourth demo flight or potentially, Boeing decides to cut their losses and cancels the program.