The inaugural mission of the 
Boeing Starliner capsule was marred by so many technical issues that it not only had to return unmanned, but its second mission is slated to solely carry cargo with no astronauts aboard. Tests and certification of design improvements are underway, with the earliest expected launch date to be sometime in April 2026.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX at the same time in 2014, but allocated a higher funding level to the Boeing project. Since then, it has underperformed in comparison to the SpaceX Dragon capsule.
The Starliner’s Strife
Boeing was given a contract valued at $4.6 billion to develop its Starliner, while the SpaceX Dragon was developed with funding of roughly half that at $2.6 billion. The Starliner debuted in 2024, four years after the Dragon launched in 2020. The summer of 2025 also saw the Dragon capsule complete its twelfth mission. The poor results of the Starliner program have forced NASA to cut the total number of missions it was scheduled to perform down from six to four.
A major software error during the first uncrewed test flight in 2019 caused the capsule to go off course and burn too much fuel, preventing it from docking with the ISS. The remaining missions will be spaced out over the coming years before the International Space Station is decommissioned in 2030. If the cargo mission is performed successfully, there will only be three more opportunities for Boeing to prove that its Starliner can safely carry astronauts. NASA’s commercial crew program manager, Steve Stich, was quoted by ABC News as saying:
“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year.”
In The Shadow Of The Dragon
Recurring issues have plagued the Starliner‘s thruster system, including stuck valves in ground tests, and several reaction control system thrusters malfunctioning during the 2024 Crew Flight Test. These issues were so severe that the crew was ultimately instructed to return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams successfully docked the Starliner to the ISS in 2024, but it was a struggle for the crew, and the risks exceeded NASA’s appetite for crewed flight. The decision to have the Starliner return empty meant that the astronauts who flew it to the ISS were stranded for nine months in orbit before getting a chance to return.
The CFT mission also experienced multiple helium leaks, adding to the safety concerns and further delaying the spacecraft’s return to Earth. The Crew Dragon is an evolution of the Cargo Dragon capsule, which has been flying cargo missions to the International Space Station since 2010.
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NASA has significantly increased its reliance on the Crew Dragon to end US reliance on Russian Soyuz capsules to get astronauts to the ISS after the retirement of the Space Shuttle. Boeing’s failure to provide a successor to the Space Shuttle forced NASA to opt for a mix of Crew Dragon flights and purchase seats on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for crew exchange, until the Starliner came online.
The Crew Dragon was an evolution of SpaceX’s successful Cargo Dragon capsule, giving the company a head start in experience. Boeing started with a clean slate design and lacked recent in-house experience with space capsule development. Boeing’s more traditional, phase-by-phase (waterfall) method left integrated testing until late in the process, leading to major, time-consuming issues when problems were eventually discovered.
SpaceX embraced a « build-test-learn » approach, creating and flying multiple prototypes, learning from failures, and implementing rapid redesigns. This allowed them to identify and resolve critical design flaws early in the development cycle, cutting the timeline significantly. SpaceX completed its testing faster and at a lower cost per seat.
The reusability of both the Dragon capsule and its Falcon 9 rocket booster significantly drives down costs, making each mission more affordable. Boeing’s system, while also reusable for the capsule, did not have the same proven reusability track record and ended up with a higher cost per seat.