The next Boeing Starliner flight will only be allowed to carry cargo

American space The agency ended months of speculation about the next flight of Boeing Starliner spacecraftStressing that the vehicle will only carry cargo to the International Space Station.

NASA and Boeing are now targeting the launch of the unmanned Starliner-1 mission no later than April 2026, the space agency said. NASA added that a launch by next April will require the completion of rigorous testing, certification and mission readiness activities. In a statement.

“NASA and Boeing continue to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, said in a statement.

Reducing crew tasks

NASA also said it had reached an agreement with Boeing to amend the Commercial Crew Contract, signed in 2014, which called for six crewed flights to the space station after the spacecraft was certified. The plan now is to launch Starliner-1 carrying cargo, then up to three additional missions before the space station is retired.

“This modification allows NASA and Boeing to focus on safely certifying the system in 2026, performing the first Starliner crew rotation when it is ready, and aligning our ongoing flight planning for future Starliner missions based on the station’s operational needs through 2030,” Stitch said.

SpaceX and Boeing were awarded contracts in 2014 to develop crewed spacecraft and fly six operational missions to the space station. SpaceX, with its Crew Dragon vehicle, had a successful crew test flight in mid-2020 and its first operational mission before the end of that year. Most recently, the Crew-11 mission was launched in August, and Crew-12 is currently scheduled to launch on February 15.

The Dragon has served as a reliable transportation system for NASA as Boeing has faced development struggles.

The Starliner’s maiden flight had to be cut short in December 2019, without a crew, after software problems plagued the spacecraft. It was nearly lost shortly after launch and also before re-entering the atmosphere. She did not make a planned rendezvous with the space station.

The second mission, Orbital Flight Test 2, was conducted in May 2022. Due to problems with the previous mission, this spacecraft also flew without a crew. This flight was more successful, reaching the space station despite some problems with the propulsion system.

Orbital flight test 3?

NASA then spent more than two years testing Starliner on Earth before its first crewed flight in 2024. Carries NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams. During its approach to the space station, the Starliner spacecraft once again encountered serious propulsion problems. (However, the life-and-death nature of this journey was not revealed until nearly a year later.) Eventually, the Starliner docked at the station, but after heated deliberations, NASA informed Boeing that the vehicle would return to Earth without a crew.

As a result, the Dragon mission will launch later in 2024 with only two astronauts on board instead of four. This allowed for the safe return of Willmore and Williams in March 2025.

Since then, it has seemed likely that Boeing would be asked to fly an unmanned mission to prove the safety of the Starliner’s propulsion system, but that had not been confirmed as of Monday.

NASA has remained largely silent about the changes made to Boeing’s propulsion system and the tests it underwent on Earth. Part of the problem with diagnosing propulsion problems is that the problems occurred in the “service module” portion of the spacecraft, which is jettisoned before the spacecraft enters Earth’s atmosphere and returns to Earth.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.