Commercial Crew: certify transport for people

NASA’s Commercial Crew effort began supporting industry development in 2010. After the Shuttle retired in 2011, NASA astronauts continued reaching the ISS aboard Soyuz while U.S. commercial crew systems were developed. In September 2014, NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX for the next major certification — open definition and service phase.

The program concerns transport to and from low Earth orbit, especially the ISS, rather than lunar landings. Boeing developed Starliner and SpaceX developed Crew Dragon with their launch and ground systems. NASA’s requirements and oversight, supplier work, training and mission operations remained part of the capability; a company-built capsule alone was not the whole system.

Robert L. Behnken and Douglas G. Hurley launched on Crew Dragon’s Demo-2 mission on May 30, 2020. Their August return completed the crewed test flight. NASA and SpaceX then assessed flight data and other verification evidence before system certification in November 2020 and the first operational crew-rotation mission.

Human transport needs evidence about life support, abort options, docking — open definition, controls, recovery and operation with the station. Successful cargo flights are relevant experience but do not automatically demonstrate those crew-specific functions. Certification concerns a defined system and mission use; it is not a claim that every future flight carries zero risk.

Boeing’s 2024 Crew Flight Test took Barry E. Wilmore and Sunita L. Williams to the ISS. Starliner returned without them after NASA assessed unresolved propulsion concerns; they returned on Crew Dragon with Crew-9 in March 2025. That dated sequence must not be summarized as the originally planned crewed return on Starliner.

The program illustrates both the benefit of additional transport options and the need to preserve vehicle-specific evidence. A selection, test, certification and operational mission are different milestones. This introduction uses completed historical events through March 2025 rather than promising later Starliner dates or treating an old forecast as a current schedule.