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Boeing has lost another $ 125 million on its Starliner astronaut capsule political program due to delays in its first crew flight of steps test , which was presuppose to last just eight day — and has now been on orbit for almost two months .
The aerospace whale has lost $ 1.6 billion on Starliner , include the $ 125 million , which was report to regulatorsin a quarterly filing . While the caller was awarded a monumental $ 4.2 billion contract to quicken Starliner development in 2014 , it was structure as a “ fixed - price ” fashion model . That mean any cost overruns are solely the contractor ’s province .
SpaceX was also awarded a fix - price contract for spaceman transportation services for $ 2.6 billion at the same clip and has been accomplish its contracted responsibility for the blank federal agency with the Crew Dragon capsule since 2020 .
But while SpaceX ’s crewed service have soared — to include mission for both NASA and secret customers — Boeing has struggled . Under the two contract , NASA said it would grease one’s palms six crewed launches each from Boeing and SpaceX , but due to Starliner holdup , NASA has purchased an additional eight missions from SpaceX. The Elon Musk - led fellowship is now the only provider of astronaut transportation services for the space agency .
Serious issuance see during an uncrewed trial run flying in 2019 pushed back the date of another test by two year . The company had a mo of abbreviated victory in 2022 , when that uncrewed mission was finally successful , but extra problem discovered afterwards pushed the crewed flight psychometric test to this June .
That mission , which launched on June 5 , save NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS . But it did n’t go all smoothly ; a issue of upshot , let in misfunction thrusters , have chair Boeing and NASA official to delay the replication of the two astronauts for weeks .
This loss and others has made Boeing executive director reticent to take on more make - Mary Leontyne Price contracts in the future : “ Based on the lessons that we ’ve larn in claim on these fixed - terms development political platform , we have maintained catching discipline for all future chance , ” extroverted CEO Dave Calhoun said on an pay call .
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It ’s potential that Boeing will get further exit in the program . NASA has already state it would push back the first Starliner mission to no earlier than August 2025 , yet another delay for the programme . In an sheer worst - case scenario , major modification to Starliner ’s actuation system could be very costly .
As of right now , Starliner does not have a rejoinder date to Earth . The agency said it was propose to wrap up up a net readiness review article in the first hebdomad of August and make a decision on the paying back day of the month at that peak . A thruster test conducted on electron orbit was promising , however , with NASA sayingin a July 30 updatethat the preliminary results show that the thrusters are back to “ preflight levels ” of operation .
