Boeing seemed like the safe bet in 2014 when NASA awarded it and SpaceX contracts to Build new manned spacecraft for the agency.SpaceX has been transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) for several years, but Boeing is having difficulty completing its mission. manned demonstration missionIn its latest financial reports, the scale of the Starliner disaster is highlighted. The company has suffered another blow, increasing its Starliner losses to a whopping $1.6 billion, and it expects that figure to rise.
In 2014, NASA paid Boeing $4.3 billion, while SpaceX received a smaller payment of $2.6 billion. Boeing projected that it would have the CST-100 Starliner ready for crewed flights by 2017, but that has turned out to be a very optimistic timeline. Boeing didn’t even launch its crewed demonstration flight until June 2024, and it hasn’t gone particularly well.
Boeing is a public company, so we have a window into Starliner’s development costs. SpaceX, by comparison, is a private company that doesn’t have to release financial data. It’s possible that Elon Musk’s aerospace company also lost money building Crew Dragon, but that doesn’t seem likely. SpaceX was able to modify an existing design for the cargo Dragon, and its Falcon 9 rockets helped keep launch costs down during testing. Boeing, however, regularly reports losses on Starliner, including $125 million in its latest quarterly results. according According to Ars Technica, the total cost of Starliner is around $5.9 billion.
As a longtime government contractor, Boeing was accustomed to operating in a “cost-plus” environment. Companies prefer cost-plus contracts because they ensure that the government pays all costs associated with a project and then the contractor gets paid extra. When faced with the fixed-price Commercial Crew Program, Boeing may have spent less at the beginning to make more profit. However, Starliner’s technical problems and continued mission failures have resulted in huge losses.
Credit: NASA
The first crewed Starliner has been docked at the ISS since June. NASA has extended the mission several times this summer while working with Boeing on Ground tests to understand a series of engine failures and helium leaks that occurred during Starliner's approach to the ISS. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have spent much more time on the ISS than initially planned, but the pair have They expressed their joy Boeing is probably not so happy about the prospect of spending more time in space. Since it has to pay all the development costs, the remaining problems with Starliner could lead to “additional losses in future periods,” according to the report (PDF).
There could be changes afoot at Boeing. In a separate announcement this week, the company announced that CEO Dave Calhoun will step down on August 8. He will be replaced by Kelly Ortberg, who previously served as CEO of Collins Aerospace. Calhoun oversaw the Starliner debacle and the deadly crash Introducing the 737 MAX passenger aircraftEven if everything changes with Ortberg, Boeing only plans a maximum of six crew rotation flights to the ISS, and it could be a year before it can launch the first of them.
