After deciding to have the Starliner ready for its first crewed flight only by 2024, Boeing Co (NYSE: BA) is now focusing on the upcoming Artemis II mission.
What Happened: The company announced in a media teleconference with NASA leaders on Tuesday that it expects to have the Starliner ready for its inaugural crewed flight in March 2024. A specific target launch date will be announced as the spacecraft nears readiness, it added.
On a successful first flight with crew, NASA will certify Starliner as an operational crew system for crew rotation missions to the space station together with SpaceX's Crew Dragon.
Immediate Focus: Boeing is now gearing up for Artemis II mission. Artemis II is scheduled for November 2024 and is the second of the two test flights planned before U.S. return to the lunar surface.
The four chosen astronauts - Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch, and Jeremy Hansen - will fly around the moon and will be the first humans to venture farthest from the Earth's low earth orbit since NASA's Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
It will be launched by NASA's space launch system rocket whose core stage, upper stages and avionics are built by Boeing.
"Your handprints will be all over that vehicle and riding with us. You'll be wingmen in our minds and hearts," Artemis II pilot Victor Glover told Boeing in a virtual fireside chat on Thursday.
Why It Matters: NASA awarded Boeing with a $4.2 billion fixed-price contract to develop the Starliner in 2014 as part of its commercial crew program. A similar contract was also awarded to Musk's SpaceX for about $2.6 billion. SpaceX is now gearing up for its seventh operational crew rotation to the International Space Station (ISS).