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There is still the possibility of either New Glenn or Vulkan being crew rated to carry Starliner. With Vulkan the concern was mainly that no one was willing to
by dotnet00 3y ago
There is still the possibility of either New Glenn or Vulkan being crew rated to carry Starliner. With Vulkan the concern was mainly that no one was willing to foot the bill, but with the rumored acquisition of ULA by Blue Origin, there's a chance they might want Starliner as their own crew vehicle. The main limitation being that Boeing has already shutdown Starliner production, only making the 2 needed for the ISS contract. So even if anyone else wanted them, they'd have to put in a bunch of money to restart production. Putting all those costs together it might just become better to do something else, e.g. crew rate Dreamliner.
That said, right now it's kind of up in the air, since as it stands, Dragon's second crew contract and Starliner's existing contract are likely to cover all remaining ISS launches. So what's needed afterwards depends on the commercial space stations NASA is pushing for.