Boeing’s Starliner is ready for human flight, but is it too late?

Nothing better illustrates how snakebit the Boeing CST-100 Starliner has been than the number of times it has failed to launch.

In early May, just two hours before it was scheduled to take off with a crew of two astronauts, the launch was scrubbed. A glitchy valve on the second stage of the Atlas V launch vehicle was to blame. The valve having been fixed, a helium leak in the Starliner spacecraft further delayed the first crewed launch. NASA and Boeing eventually decided the leak was an issue that could be lived with.

A launch attempt on June 1 also failed because a computer initiated a hold order due to a ground support sequencer issue. The launch was rescheduled for June 5.

When the Starliner finally lifted off on top of an Atlas-Centaur rocket carrying veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station, it was with a sense of relief. Despite the discovery of more helium leaks and some last-minute thruster problems, the Starliner was able to dock with the ISS about a day after liftoff.

The road to the first crewed flight of the Starliner has been long and winding. In 2014, when NASA chose the Starliner and the Crew Dragon as the commercial crew vehicle finalists, the Boeing entry was the favorite of congressional appropriators. Boeing has provided space hardware since the Apollo program. SpaceX was an upstart company viewed with suspicion and even hostility.

Indeed, as Charles Bolden, former NASA administrator, and Lori Garver, former NASA deputy administrator, once stated, Congress would never have approved the Commercial Crew program had Boeing not been one of the participants.

Ten years later, the SpaceX Crew Dragon has been making regular runs to the International Space Station for over four years and has even conducted commercial spaceflights. The Boeing Starliner has been playing catchup, with one failed uncrewed test flight and another, albeit a success, unveiling a couple of technical glitches that needed to be resolved before the first crewed test flight.

Why did Boeing stumble coming out the gate while SpaceX soared ahead? 

Eric Berger at Ars Technica wrote a piece that exhaustively explains the results of the first commercial space race. The short answer is that while SpaceX is a small, nimble company that can make and execute decisions quickly, Boeing is large and bureaucratic. Boeing never before and will likely never again accept a fixed price contract in which cost overruns come out of its corporate pocket rather than the United States government.

Elon Musk, on X, was more succinct but brutal. “Although Boeing got $4.2 billion to develop an astronaut capsule and SpaceX only got $2.6 billion, SpaceX finished 4 years sooner. Note, the crew capsule design of Dragon 2 has almost nothing in common with Dragon 1. Too many non-technical managers at Boeing.”

Once the flight concludes successfully, what happens next? Besides fixing the various glitches, of course.

The Boeing Starliner is contracted to fly just six crewed missions to the International Space Station compared to 14 for the SpaceX Crew Dragon. If Boeing has any hope of earning back a return on its investment, it has to sell commercial flights of the Starliner, just as SpaceX has the Crew Dragon. 

Laura Forczyk, the owner of Astralytica, a space consulting firm, and the author of several space-related books, has doubts. “We don’t know whether Boeing has the capacity to do additional commercial missions at this time,” 

Is it time to cut losses and just cancel the Starliner as I once suggested? As the old saying goes, in for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, NASA’s strategy of having at least two ways to take astronauts to and from low Earth orbit is sound. As good as SpaceX and its Crew Dragon are, a monopoly is never a good idea.

Absent another alternative, such as a crewed version of the Sierra Space Dream Chaser, NASA and Boeing will have to find a way to make Starliner work. The Atlas V is set to retire soon. The Starliner can be launched on the Vulcan Centaur rocket, which has only flown once and is not yet human-rated.

Boeing is a partner in Blue Origin’s proposed Orbital Reef space station. Starliner is slated to provide crew transportation for the facility, along with a crew version of the Dream Chaser, a good start for commercial missions. 

Still, Boeing has to do more to turn its crewed spacecraft from a money pit into a money maker.

Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.