NASA may give Starliner a bigger role after all
Starliner has spent years as the troubled second option in NASA's commercial crew story. Now NASA may be preparing to make that backup option matter more, not less.
Original Geekish context based on the source linked below.
The short version
Ars Technica reports that NASA could announce as early as next week that it will order two additional crewed Starliner missions from Boeing.
What NASA may do
According to Ars, NASA is also expected to pay some costs to address Starliner's thruster issues and support certification of the spacecraft on a new rocket after Atlas V retires.
Why now
Ars reports the planning comes after SpaceX told NASA officials it intends to retire Crew Dragon by 2030, if not earlier. Crew Dragon is currently NASA's only operational spacecraft for routine astronaut trips to low-Earth orbit.
Geekish take
NASA's commercial crew strategy only works if redundancy is real. Starliner has to prove itself technically, but NASA has a strong reason to avoid being boxed into a single ride to orbit.
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