spacetoday.net: Next Starliner mission to carry only cargo

Posted: Sun, Nov 30, 2025, 8:38 AM ET (1338 GMT)
The next Boeing Starliner mission to the International Space Station will carry cargo, not astronauts, under a modified NASA contract. NASA announced Monday that the agency and Boeing had mutually agreed to modify a 2014 contract for crew transportation services, reducing the number of operational missions from six to four. The first of those, Starliner-1, is scheduled to launch no earlier than April but will not have astronauts on board. NASA said the cargo flight will allow it and Boeing to confirm that modifications to the spacecraft to correct thruster problems on a 2024 crewed test flight have been fixed. The reduced number of flights also align with plans to retire the ISS at the end of the decade.