BoeingStarliner is a human-type space capsule designed to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Boeing began working on the capsule in 2014, when it signed a $4.2 billion contract with NASA under the agency's Commercial Crew Program.
NASA also chose SpaceX for this mission, and gave Elon Musk's company $2.6 billion to develop its Crew Dragon capsule.
“The entire commercial crew program was pretty much a new project,” said Caleb Henry, research director at Quilty Space. “Before that, NASA relied on a lot of its own engineering talent to get humans to the space station.”
The program allowed NASA to shift “some of these responsibilities onto the private sector,” Henry said.
He added: “There was some reservation in Congress about this kind of approach.” “Only because Boeing threw its hat in the ring was Congress, and by extension NASA, confident enough to move forward with this program.”
In the decade that followed, Boeing struggled to fulfill the six missions it had contracted to fly with NASA.
Of the nearly $5 billion Boeing has received to develop Starliner so far, the company has spent $1.5 billion to cover delay overruns. Boeing recently launched its final test, a landmark crewed mission, which needs to be completed before NASA can certify the Starliner to begin operational missions.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has completed more than a dozen crewed missions into space, launching NASA astronauts and ordinary citizens since 2020.
Watch the video to learn more about the obstacles Boeing faced with its Starliner project and what the future holds for its long-awaited capsule.
