BoeingBoeing’s Starliner is a manned space capsule designed to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Boeing began developing the capsule in 2014 after receiving a $4.2 billion contract from NASA under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
NASA also picked SpaceX for the job, awarding Elon Musk’s company $2.6 billion to develop the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
“The entire Commercial Crew Program was a brand new endeavor,” said Caleb Henry, research director at Quilty Space. “Prior to that, NASA had relied heavily on its own engineering talent to get humans to the space station.”
Henry said the program allows NASA to shift “some of the responsibility to the private sector.”
“Congress has been reluctant to do this kind of thing,” he said. “Having Boeing on board gave Congress, and therefore NASA, the confidence to really move forward with this.”
A decade later, Boeing has struggled to complete the six missions it has contracted with NASA.
Of the roughly $5 billion Boeing has received so far to develop Starliner, the company has spent $1.5 billion to cover delays. Boeing recently launched its final test, a landmark crewed mission that must be completed before NASA will authorize Starliner to launch operational missions.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has launched both NASA astronauts and private citizens, completing more than a dozen crewed space missions since 2020.
Watch the video to learn more about the obstacles Boeing faced with the Starliner project and what the future holds for the highly anticipated capsule.
