Boeing: In the Shadow of SpaceX

After the failure of its Starliner capsule, which will not bring astronauts back home from the ISS, the aerospace giant faces an even steeper decline in its space activities. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s company is setting new records.

BY EMILIO COZZI

NASA doesn’t give discounts, and it can’t afford to: Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, the astronauts who launched on June 5th aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule, will return to Earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon—the main competitor, at least in the field of human transport to and from orbit. There are too many issues with the Starliner, which reached the International Space Station (ISS) aiming to be qualified for human flight. It was supposed to be an eight-day mission, but Williams and Wilmore will stay on the ISS for eight months, until February 2025.

It’s hard not to interpret this as the humiliation of one of the historical contractors of the U.S. space program. For years, Boeing has faced significant failures, not only in space endeavors. Partly due to the sums involved, and partly due to the prestige of a company that recently had to address serious doubts about the reliability of its aircraft: during an April 17th hearing in the U.S. Senate, four current and former employees testified against the company, highlighting severe safety issues in the production of the Boeing 737 Max, 787 Dreamliner, and 777.

On top of all this is a space strategy that, according to analysts, is leaking like a sieve and suggests a ship not worth boarding anymore.

While Waiting for Starliner, SpaceX Soars

The facts are brutal, reducible to a few dates and numbers: in 2014, NASA signed two contracts for the “Commercial Crew Program,” with SpaceX and Boeing. It allocated funds to finance the development and construction of new vehicles and to pay for transportation services to and from the International Space Station. From owning the spacecraft, as was the case with the Space Shuttle until 2011, NASA became a buyer from transportation companies, purchasing “tickets” or seats for its astronauts. To restore America’s ability to launch men and women into space from U.S. soil using “made in USA” vehicles, ten years ago, Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion and SpaceX $2.6 billion.

SpaceX responded flawlessly: six years after the agreement, in May 2020, it qualified the Crew Dragon with the Demo-2 mission, ferrying Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, two veterans who had previously flown with the Space Shuttle, to the ISS. Boeing, on the other hand, began accumulating delays and costs. NASA then added $287 million to the originally fixed-fee contracts. But nothing changed: in 2019, the first orbital test of the Starliner, meant for the ISS but without a crew, was a failure. A software error prevented it from docking with the Station. The capsule returned to Earth, where it remained almost two and a half years before finally returning to orbit: it launched on May 19, 2022, and returned on the 25th. Meanwhile, in 2021, it experienced a launch aborted due to propulsion system issues. Despite this, Boeing prepared for the next step: its first crewed orbital transport on June 5th.

Again, things didn’t go as planned: during the countdown, a hydrogen leak was detected, though it did not overly concern the engineers. The decision was made to proceed with lift-off. During the journey, the leaks increased, but more importantly, there were issues with the thrusters, which in this case were significant: these are the engines the Starliner uses for maneuvers during docking and departure from the ISS, as well as for orienting itself during the delicate reentry into the atmosphere. For this reason, Williams and Wilmore had to wait for checks before approaching the ISS and, once on board, resign themselves to the fact that they would not return home in the same vehicle that took them there.

The Specter of Columbia

Bill Nelson, NASA administrator and former astronaut, announced this on August 24th during a press conference, where he highlighted an important point: “This discussion must be put into context. Mistakes have been made in the past. We lost two Space Shuttles because we did not have a culture in which information could emerge.” 

Nelson evoked the ghosts of Challenger and, in particular, Columbia, the shuttle that disintegrated in the skies over Texas on February 1, 2003, during reentry. Some of the thermal shield tiles on a wing of the Shuttle had come off during liftoff, struck at high speed by a piece of insulating foam that had detached from the main tank. Although the incident was noted, NASA decided to proceed with the mission. Upon reentry into the atmosphere, however, no longer dissipated by the compromised shielding, the extreme temperatures destroyed Columbia. All seven of its occupants perished. Space enthusiasts still remember Charles O. Hobaugh, the communications officer with the crew, repeatedly attempting radio contact: “Columbia, Houston, UHF comm check,” and on the other end, only static crackles, then silence.

Not entirely different, at least in terms of risk awareness, was the Challenger incident on January 28, 1986. It disintegrated with its crew, live on TV, 73 seconds after liftoff. As determined by the Rogers Commission, Challenger was the victim of a malfunction of one of the seals of a side booster—an O-ring—a problem known for at least eight years. The events and responsibilities traumatized the public, not just in the United States, and halted the Space Shuttle program for years.

It’s easy to understand why NASA today can’t afford to return astronauts without being certain that the vehicle they’re traveling in can maintain the optimal configuration to dive into the atmosphere, where friction with the air produces temperatures of thousands of degrees.

Where Boeing Falls Short, SpaceX Is Always There

Meanwhile, despite the second halt in two months to Falcon 9 launches—the second mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration after an incident occurred during the return phase of Booster 1062 on August 28—SpaceX seems to have no real competition. At the end of August, it even set a new record: two missions successfully launched one hour and five minutes apart. 

For this reason, truth be told, the fact that a Crew Dragon is “coming to the rescue” of NASA to cover the gaps left by Boeing is neither surprising nor unprecedented. When, in the coming weeks—no earlier than September 24th—the Dragon Freedom capsule docks with the ISS carrying two astronauts instead of four, namely Commander Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov (the vacant seats are for the return of Williams and Wilmore), it will be the tenth time SpaceX has provided manned transport services for NASA. More, if we include the commercial flights (Inspiration4 and three Axiom missions). And here, we need to revisit the economic discussion.

The funds allocated for the two contracts signed in 2014 included the design and development of the capsule, validation, and qualification for human flight—that is, two test flights, one uncrewed and one crewed; plus, from two to six operational flights. NASA’s idea was to ensure redundancy; alternating operators would have additionally prevented a de facto monopoly by one of the two companies. This, unfortunately, has not yet happened.

The United States has to rely entirely on SpaceX’s services while waiting for Starliner to enter service. Returning to purchasing seats on Russian Soyuz capsules, as was done for the previous nine years (an obligation felt with a certain degree of humiliation), especially with a fully operational new vehicle available, would no longer be acceptable.

Therefore, to compensate for Boeing’s delays, NASA purchased eight more Crew Dragon missions, increasing SpaceX’s contract to $4.9 billion. Meanwhile, according to the accounting reports presented by the company, due to the delays accumulated, Boeing has already lost $1.6 billion on the Starliner project. This means that NASA’s funds (under a fixed-price contract, it bears repeating) are likely insufficient to meet the commitments made.

It is still unclear whether Boeing will have to repeat the crewed qualification flight, which would widen the “gap.” To the tally, add another detail, which perhaps is not a minor one: the accounts prepared by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) estimate that the price for a seat on the Crew Dragon is around $55 million. On a Starliner, the cost skyrockets to $90 million. This is not a good sign in terms of competitiveness, especially when considering extending Starliner transports to other buyers, public, institutional, and private.

The Space Launch System and ULA

Unfortunately for Boeing’s new CEO, Robert Kelly Ortberg, the well seems even deeper. Because in addition to Starliner, another concern plagues the company’s space division: the Space Launch System (SLS). As highlighted in an analysis by Joey Roulette for Reuters, the NASA OIG, inspecting the accounts, revealed severe quality control issues and stated that Boeing’s workforce for SLS at Michoud, Louisiana, “does not have sufficient experience, training, and skills in aerospace manufacturing.”

Unlike the Commercial Crew Program, however, SLS risks truly being a bottomless pit for public funds: cost overruns for the contractors (Boeing builds the core stage, the central part of the launch system designed to return humanity to the Moon) directly impact NASA’s budget. Boeing quickly disagreed with the expert analysis. Just as it has always assured that Starliner could bring Williams and Wilmore back home without risk.

The enormous costs to launch an SLS, around two billion dollars, perhaps make it the least competitive launcher on the market compared to a Falcon Heavy, the future Starship (again SpaceX), or the New Glenn (Blue Origin), just to limit the competition to

 U.S.-made heavy-lift rockets. It’s no coincidence it has been nicknamed the “Senate Launch System” by critics, who see this project as a waste of money approved to satisfy the supply chain of historic space contractors, especially in the southern United States. An investment, skeptics insist, driven by a political motive, a quest for support, and resulting in a launcher born obsolete, not reusable, and even using Shuttle program engines.

It is also no secret that Boeing and Lockheed Martin are considering selling the joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA), one of SpaceX’s main competitors in the space launcher sector. Perhaps a way to cash in and focus on something else. Answering a question during the August 24th conference, Bill Nelson said he was “one hundred percent sure” that Starliner would return to space with astronauts on board. Given the amount spent, it is indeed difficult to imagine a step back. And anyway, if needed, there’s always SpaceX.