Review finds 80 Starliner issues

NASA wants Boeing back on track after problematic test flight

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is enjoying the success of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon flight to the International Space Station but wants to get its other commercial partner Boeing back on track after the problematic uncrewed test flight of its Starliner capsule in late 2019.

NASA designated that December mission a “high visibility close call” because even though Boeing managed to launch its CST-100 Starliner atop an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, several issues including a trajectory error put the capsule in an orbit that wouldn’t allow it to dock with the ISS. The company was able to return it safely back to Earth.

The first round of an independent review of what went wrong released in March turned up 61 issues, and the now-complete final review has beefed that list up to 80 things that both NASA and Boeing need to work on to get the Starliner on track.

The problems address needs for more hardware and software integration testing, peer review, updating software code and fixing Earth-to-vehicle communication. NASA specifically will be playing