Boeing Starliner astronaut drops out of first crewed test flight

[Mike Wehner]

• A Boeing Starliner test flight pilot is now dropping out of the first crewed mission for the spacecraft.
• Astronaut Christopher Ferguson says he has commitments in 2021 that simply can't be postponed and will have to sit out the first crewed mission after being named its commander.
• The mission is expected to take place by mid-2021.

Boeing's Starliner project has been riddled with delays and setbacks pretty much from the moment it got started. The most public and visible of these setbacks was the uncrewed mission to the International Space Station that never actually made it to the ISS due to a malfunction. It threw a major wrench in Boeing's plans, pushing back the timeline for a crewed mission by many months.

But a crewed mission is still in the works, and is expected to happen in 2021. In fact, plans for the mission had already been largely solidified, with an announcement of the crew that would be taking that first crewed flight. Now, as though Boeing's Starliner is cursed, one of the astronauts set to take part in that first mission has announced he's stepping down from his seat on Starliner.

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Boeing Starliner astronaut drops out of first crewed test flight originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 8 Oct 2020 at 21:08:36 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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