NASA and Boeing to Brief on Starliner's Path to Regular Crew Flights: What We Know Before Monday

What is happening, and when

NASA and Boeing plan to hold a news conference at 3 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, to discuss the development of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft and its plans for regular crew flights to and from the International Space Station. The event was announced in a NASA media advisory, M26-073, published Sept. 25, 2026, and written by Lauren E. Low of NASA Headquarters.

The advisory lists four participants: NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman; Dana Weigel, manager of NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program; NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg; and John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Boeing Commercial Crew. Media already credentialed for the upcoming SpaceX Crew-13 mission may attend in person at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and credentialed media can request a dial-in number from the Kennedy newsroom by email no later than one hour before the call begins. The public can watch at https://www.nasa.gov/live.

To be clear about what this article is and is not: it is a verified preview written before the briefing takes place. Nothing in this piece describes what the officials said at the event, because at the time of writing that event had not yet occurred. The confirmed facts here are the schedule, the participants, and the documented history of the Starliner program from NASA's own pages.

What NASA has actually committed to

"During a news conference at 3 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28, NASA and Boeing leadership will discuss Starliner's development and plans for regular crew flights to and from the International Space Station."

That sentence is quoted word for word from NASA's media advisory M26-073, published Sept. 25, 2026, on nasa.gov. It is the fullest public statement NASA has issued about the event's purpose, and it contains no commitments beyond holding the discussion itself. NASA has not published, in the advisory or elsewhere that we retrieved, any specific schedule for Starliner's next flight or for the certification decision that would allow crewed missions. Readers should treat any detailed dates or milestones attributed to the briefing before it happens as unverified.

Why a second crew vehicle matters to readers

The core stake in Monday's briefing is a simple but consequential question: will the United States have two independent ways to send astronauts to orbit, or only one?

NASA's Commercial Crew Program was built around that question. Under the program, the agency buys astronaut transportation as a service from two companies under fixed-price contracts, SpaceX and Boeing, instead of owning and operating the vehicles itself. NASA's own overview page describes the goal as "safe, reliable, and cost-effective human transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a partnership with American private industry."

Only one of the two providers has reached that goal so far. NASA's overview states that the agency "has officially certified SpaceX's crew system and started regular missions with astronauts to the space station," while NASA "and Boeing continue to make progress to ensure the company's CST-100 Starliner system is capable of carrying astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station."

Why does redundancy matter for people who do not follow spaceflight? Because when only one vehicle can carry crews, every problem with that vehicle becomes a national problem. If a spacecraft is grounded for repairs or investigation, the space station still needs crews to rotate, maintenance still needs to be performed, and scientific research still needs hands. With a single provider, NASA's options narrow to waiting, flying fewer astronauts, or relying on partners such as Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. With two certified providers, a technical problem with one vehicle does not stop the other from flying. That is the practical difference between a transportation system with a backup and one without.

The 2024 test flight and its aftermath

The history is well documented on NASA's pages. Starliner's end-to-end Crew Flight Test launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in June 2024, carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The mission was planned for roughly 8 to 14 days, but propulsion anomalies extended it to 93 days on orbit, according to NASA's Commercial Crew Program overview.

The flight's ending is the part most readers remember: Wilmore and Williams returned to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, not on the Starliner that carried them up. The spacecraft returned uncrewed. NASA subsequently released an investigation report with what the agency's overview describes as "the full findings for the mission and 61 corrective recommendations for future crewed Starliner missions." That report was published in February 2026 and is linked from NASA's Commercial Crew Program overview page.

These are observed events, taken from NASA's own summary. What is not yet known is what NASA and Boeing will say on Monday about whether those corrective recommendations are being met and what the path to regular crewed flights looks like. That is precisely what the briefing is intended to address, and any answer before Monday would be speculation.

The current crew rotation picture

The timing of the briefing is notable because crew operations at the station are active on the SpaceX side. According to NASA's blog, NASA, SpaceX, and international partners polled "go" on Sept. 25, 2026, to continue preparing for the Crew-13 launch, which remains targeted for no earlier than 11:10 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 1, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The Crew-13 astronauts arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 26 to begin final launch preparations.

In other words, NASA is holding its Starliner update in the same week that its only certified crew provider is preparing another rotation flight. The contrast illustrates the current state of the program: regular crew flights are happening, but through a single provider. Monday's briefing is where the agency and Boeing are expected to explain how the second provider fits into that picture.

One more observed detail worth noting: the briefing will be led at the top. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman's participation signals that this is an agency-level update rather than a routine program teleconference, although the advisory does not explain the reason for that level of participation, and readers should not assume one.

What to watch for, and what remains unknown

The advisory does not promise any specific outcome, and neither does this article. What is confirmed: a news conference will take place at 3 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, with the four named participants, streamed at nasa.gov/live. What is documented history: the 2024 Crew Flight Test, its 93-day extension due to propulsion anomalies, the astronauts' return on a SpaceX vehicle, and the 61 corrective recommendations from NASA's investigation. What is uncertain: everything that will be said at the briefing, including any flight schedule, certification timeline, or design decision.

The reader-facing question to listen for on Monday is not whether Starliner works in some general sense. Its spacecraft has docked to the station multiple times, including uncrewed test flights in 2019's aftermath and the 2024 crewed flight. The question is whether NASA will describe a concrete, dated path by which a second American crew vehicle becomes an operational, certified option. Until that path is stated, redundancy in American human spaceflight remains an aspiration rather than an achieved condition. We will treat the briefing's contents as a separate, follow-up story once it has actually occurred.