Name: Boeing to launch first crewed flight of Starliner spacecraft
Brand: houstonchronicle.com
SKU: houstonchronicle-com-661
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Boeing to launch first crewed flight of Starliner spacecraft

preview

After years of&nbsp;delays, setbacks and failures, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is about to carry astronauts to space for the first time.The mission, set to launch Monday night from Cape Canaveral in Florida, has been more than a decade in the making and comes four years after Boeing’s rival,&nbsp;SpaceX, began ferrying crews to the International Space Station. It also coincides with a period of heightened scrutiny for the 108-year-old company’s sprawling aviation business after a panel blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 in January.Article continues below this adA mostly flawless flight of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft could help Boeing’s image, while any major problems would be devastating.&nbsp;“They know it can't go wrong, both for human safety standpoints and for the brand,” said Greg&nbsp;Autry, director of Arizona State University’s Thunderbird Initiative for Space Leadership, Policy and Business. “And I think that's a challenge for Boeing because here's a high-risk environment that's very public. SpaceX doesn't have that problem. They don't make commercial aircraft.”The test flight, scheduled for 9:34&nbsp;p.m. CDT Monday with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will be the sixth time NASA astronauts fly into orbit in a new spacecraft. Williams will be the first woman on one of those inaugural missions.&nbsp;The astronauts are expected to reach the International Space Station late Tuesday, Houston time, and will spend roughly one week there. They will then return to Earth beneath parachutes, with six airbags inflating just before they land at one of four potential sites in the western United States.Article continues below this adThis flight test is the last major requirement before NASA can certify the&nbsp;Starliner vehicle, allowing Boeing to begin regularly shepherding astronauts to the space station.“It's a huge milestone,” said Phil Smith, a space industry analyst at&nbsp;BryceTech. “Boeing is now in the game. It's now got people going to ISS in a vehicle, and we've been waiting a long time for that.”NASA gave Boeing and&nbsp;SpaceX contracts in 2014 with the goal of having commercially owned and operated spacecraft fly humans to the space station in 2017. SpaceX flew its crewed flight test in 2020 and has since flown eight operational missions for the agency.&nbsp;But Boeing’s crewed flight has been mired in delays, including a software error during an&nbsp;uncrewed flight test in 2019 that prevented it from docking with the space station and corroded valves ahead of a 2021 redo flight.Article continues below this adStarliner did fly its second uncrewed flight in May 2022, successfully docking with the space station and landing in New Mexico. But more issues surfaced last year as the company prepared to fly Wilmore and Williams.&nbsp;Last June, Boeing announced that a small link in its parachute lines couldn’t bear as much weight as expected, which would be a problem if one of the spacecraft’s three parachutes didn’t open. The company also found flammable tape wrapped around wire harnesses.&nbsp;All of those problems have been fixed, said Mark&nbsp;Nappi, vice president and program manager for Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program. Nappi, NASA leadership and the crew emphasized that Starliner is ready to fly.&nbsp;“We will not fly until we’re ready,”&nbsp;Wilmore said during a news conference. “We’ve had a few delays because we weren’t ready.”&nbsp;Article continues below this ad“The spacecraft is ready,” he added, “and the teams are ready.”Yet Monday’s launch comes during a turbulent period for Boeing’s aviation business.The 737 Max 9 incident in January ripped open a hole in the plane, forcing passengers to don oxygen masks and pilots to make an emergency landing.Nobody was seriously injured, but the incident raised questions about the company’s manufacturing quality control. It also thrust Boeing back into the spotlight years after two 737 Max 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people.Article continues below this adSmith believes that launching astronauts in a Boeing-branded spacecraft could somewhat help the company’s image;&nbsp;Autry isn’t convinced.“It’s nice to have a win, but most of the public won't notice,”&nbsp;Autry said. “But if something went wrong, they sure as heck would, and they would tie it to things that are completely unrelated. That would be unfair to Boeing. But that's what happens when you've got a conglomerate, basically, that's in so many different fields with the same brand.”The company was founded around the birth of aviation, but it has a long history in space. Boeing — along with companies it later acquired — built major components of NASA’s Apollo spacecraft, Saturn&nbsp;V moon rocket, space shuttle and space station. Boeing is also a prime contractor for components on NASA’s new moon rocket, the Space Launch System.That experience is why Smith and many others thought Boeing would beat&nbsp;SpaceX to the space station.&nbsp;But Boeing’s culture, centered around more traditional government contracts and building commercial airplanes with little room for failure, lacked the urgency of&nbsp;SpaceX.“SpaceX has had a really aggressive recruiting culture,” Autry said, “and has been able to get engineers when they needed them at prices below market price and work them harder than you can imagine. That is a huge competitive advantage to getting these things done.”When NASA selected the two for its Commercial Crew Program, Boeing was the industry stalwart and&nbsp;SpaceX, founded in 2002, still had the feel of a startup. The differences are apparent today. SpaceX built its own mission control in Hawthorne, Calif., while Boeing has a contract to use NASA’s mission control in Houston.On board, the&nbsp;SpaceX Crew Dragon uses more touchscreen displays, and Boeing’s Starliner has more manual switches familiar to NASA spacecraft.&nbsp;Steve&nbsp;Stich, manager for the Commercial Crew Program, said the Boeing cockpit reminds him of the space shuttle. Williams added that&nbsp;Starliner has a lot of similarities to NASA’s Orion spacecraft slated to fly astronauts around the moon in 2025.“If I was a young astronaut and I was thinking about going to the moon,” she said, “I'd put my hand up and say, ‘I want to fly&nbsp;Starliner.’”And although Boeing is frequently compared to&nbsp;SpaceX, Nappi said he isn’t frustrated by the latter's lead. He cheers for SpaceX as it launches crews to the International Space Station.“We're looking forward to providing that as well,” he said. “We would like to have been further along at this time, there's no doubt about that, but we're here now.”NASA wants two transportation systems in case technical issues, like Boeing’s, should ground one of the spacecraft. It spent the past decade providing both companies with guidance, technical support and funding.Boeing has received nearly $5.2 billion from NASA since 2010. Boeing did not disclose how much additional money it has spent on&nbsp;Starliner, but cost overruns on the spacecraft have prompted the publicly traded company to take a $1.4 billion hit to its net income over time.Boeing has a contract to fly six operational missions for NASA, not including Monday’s flight test. After that, there are questions on whether the company can make a “positive business case” for the long-term future of&nbsp;Starliner, a Boeing official suggested last year to the Washington Post.Smith said it’s hard to believe Boeing would invest so much money for just six operational flights.&nbsp;Autry would like to see Boeing continue to fly Starliner — potential commercial space stations, which Boeing is helping develop, would benefit from two spacecraft — but he worries that the company’s aviation business won’t tolerate the risks.“There's just a lot more potential downside than there is upside, and I think Boeing strategically understands that and is questioning if they want to be in the commercial human spaceflight market,” Autry said. “I could totally see the aircraft marketing team saying, ‘We do not want you to be in the commercial space tourism business. That's not good for us.’”For now,&nbsp;Nappi said he’s focused on this first crewed flight test and Boeing’s first operational mission slated for the spring of next year.“Once we get past that milestone, I think we may start looking at some of the private astronaut missions,” he said. “The private astronaut missions are of an interest later in the decade.”&nbsp;The Associated Press contributed to this report.

After years of&nbsp;delays, setbacks and failures, Boeing’s Starliner capsule is about to carry astronauts to space for the first time.The mission, set to launch Monday night from Cape Canaveral in Florida, has been more than a decade in the making and comes four years after Boeing’s rival,&nbsp;SpaceX, began ferrying crews to the International Space Station. It also coincides with a period of heightened scrutiny for the 108-year-old company’s sprawling aviation business after a panel blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 in January.Article continues below this adA mostly flawless flight of the...

Boeing to launch first crewed flight of Starliner spacecraft

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS