Boeing spacecraft Starliner is seen from the window of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule “Endeavour” on July 3, 2024, whereas docked with the Worldwide House Station throughout the crew flight take a look at.
NASA
Boeing has misplaced greater than $2 billion and relying on its Starliner spacecraft after a tough 12 months by which the capsule’s first astronaut flight became a headache for NASA.
The Starliner program reported fees of $523 million for 2024 — its largest single-year loss to this point — Boeing reported in a submitting on Monday. The corporate famous that Starliner is underneath a fixed-price contract from NASA, so “there’s ongoing threat that comparable losses might should be acknowledged in future durations.”
Since 2014, when NASA awarded Boeing with an almost $5 billion fixed-price contract to develop Starliner, the corporate has recorded losses on this system nearly yearly.
Boeing’s program competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has flown 10 crew missions for NASA and relying on its Dragon capsules.
Final summer time, Boeing’s first crew flight went awry after a part of the capsule’s propulsion system malfunctioned. Whereas Starliner delivered astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the Worldwide House Station, NASA made the choice to carry Starliner again empty and use SpaceX to return the crew early this 12 months — an company alternative that just lately grew to become politicized.
Neither Boeing nor NASA have offered particulars on how or once they plan to resolve the Starliner propulsion concern.
Boeing final week confirmed that Starliner Vice President Mark Nappi was leaving his function, Reuters reported, with the corporate’s ISS program supervisor John Mulholland named as his substitute. Mullholland beforehand led the Starliner program from 2011 to 2020.
Almost 4 months in the past, NASA mentioned it was holding “home windows of alternative for a possible Starliner flight in 2025,” however scheduled SpaceX to fly each its crews on missions launching in spring and late summer time. NASA then specified that “the timing and configuration of Starliner’s subsequent flight might be decided as soon as a greater understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established.”
The company has not given an replace on Starliner since making these feedback in October.
