Boeing Starliner Spacecraft 2

In September 2014 Boeing was one of two companies selected by NASA to develop crewed spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, the other being SpaceX. Boeing planned to construct three Starliner spacecraft. The spacecraft's ability to be reused up to ten times with a six-month turnaround time between flights meant three spacecraft would be enough to satisfy the needs of the Commercial Crew Program.[2]

The first Starliner flight test, Boe-OFT, was launched on 20 December 2019, carrying Starliner Calypso (Spacecraft 3) on what was expected to be a week-long uncrewed shakedown cruise to the International Space Station. Although the flight ended in partial failure, with Calypso being forced to return to Earth without arriving at the ISS due to an issue with the spacecraft's onboard Mission Elapsed Timer (MET) clock.[3] Prior to OFT, Spacecraft 2 was scheduled to fly on Boe-CFT, the first crewed Starliner flight test sometime in 2020, although the partial failure that occurred on Boe-OFT threw this into doubt. In July 2020, Boeing announced that following an investigation into the failure that occurred on Boe-OFT, they would schedule a second uncrewed flight test using the spacecraft and Atlas V N22 rocket originally manifested to be used on CFT, then scheduled for October 2020.[4]

Spacecraft 2, which will most likely receive an actual name around or after its maiden flight, is scheduled to launch on OFT-2 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on an approximately week-long test flight to the ISS. The flight will mark the first Starliner flight with a new docking system, featuring a cover over the NASA Docking System docking port. This was added to protect the docking system during the spacecraft's descent towards Earth at the end of its flight.[5]