Could this be the end of Starliner?

Bye baby

NASA appears to be saying “Sayonara” to Boeing’s cursed Starliner — at least for the foreseeable future.

As SpaceNews An agency official reportedly demurred when asked about a mission update from earlier this week that appeared to have put the leaky spacecraft on hold after its disastrous first rollout left two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station.

Earlier this week, NASA announced that its upcoming Crew 10 and Crew 11 rotation missions to the ISS will use SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, developed under the same Commercial Crew program as Boeing's troubled Starliner. As SpaceNews points out that the earlier mission was originally intended for Starliner, which has yet to be certified for flight.

Whether that means the space agency has finally given up on Starliner remains unclear at best, but it's certainly not a sign of confidence in the aerospace giant's spacecraft.

In its announcement, NASA said that “the timing and configuration of Starliner's next flight will be determined once there is a better understanding of Boeing's path to system certification.”

During a press conference the following day at the annual International Astronautical Congress in Milan, Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy appeared to echo that sentiment — and more.

“The data is currently being reviewed,” Melroy said SpaceNews. “We have to make a decision: Do we need another test flight?”

That seems to be the elephant in the room since NASA brought the broken Boeing plane back to Earth last month without its precious cargo — even as the agency scrambles to bring those two people home.

Homeward

In its statement, NASA reiterated that Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are expected to return to Earth in February on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which docked (successfully, we might add) with the ISS in late September.

After the Boeing plane was broken in many ways, NASA played a space-age game of musical chairs, trying to find a way to bring the Starliner astronauts home.

NASA had to make some difficult decisions – including leaving behind two disgruntled women who were supposed to ride on the same Crew 9 mission that would bring back Wilmore and Williams.

Of course, as far as worst-case scenarios go, Boeing's cursed Starliner could have turned out even worse. Much like the Challenger explosion, however, this is a pretty botched debacle that has caused major headaches and embarrassment on all sides.

Worse than SpaceNews NASA Administrator Bill Nelson reportedly admitted this week that the agency may continue to rely on Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft for years to come, an uncomfortable admission given the sheer amount of resources it is pouring into its Commercial Crew program stuck.

More about the ISS: NASA says it's perfectly fine for the space station to be full of cracks and leaks