Boeing says it may sign up private astronauts for future Starliner missions, but the focus is on NASA for now.
The spacecraft’s program manager, Mark Nappi, told reporters Thursday (April 25) that the company is very focused on flying the first Starliner assignment for NASA with astronauts on board. That mission, the Crew Flight Test (CFT), will see NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams rocket into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on May 6 at the earliest.
“The [CFT] is really all of our attention at this point,” Nappi said during a telephone press conference from the launch pad at NASA Kennedy Space Center near Orlando. After that, Boeing will make sure it has enough spacecraft manufactured for future NASA astronaut flights, which are expected to number six or seven.
Private flights are a possibility, but not the concern for now as they build out NASA flights through International Space Stations possible retirement in 2030, he added. “We have plenty of time to think about what happens after that,” Nappi added.
Boeing’s decision contrasts with the other private company sending astronauts to the ISS: SpaceX.
Three years after space shuttleWhen they retired in 2011, both SpaceX and Boeing received contracts from NASA to send commercial crewed missions to the ISS. As of 2014, when the contracts were announced, Boeing’s Starliner commercial crew contract is valued at $4.2 billion, compared to SpaceX’s $2.6 billion.
SpaceX sent its first test mission to the ISS in 2020 and has provided 11 more astronaut flights to the complex since then: Eight six-month missions for NASA and three roughly two-week missions for private astronaut companies Axiom Space.
Axiom is actually just a private entity using SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship. In 2021, for example, Shift4 billionaire and private pilot Jared Isaacman flew into Earth orbit with three civilians on a mission known as Inspiration4. Isaacman subsequently purchased three more Crew Dragon missions for a private three-mission series known as Polaris program. The first of the trio, Polaris Dawnwill fly with Isaacman and three other people as soon as this year and have the first commercial spacecraft.
Despite all these private missions flown with SpaceX, Boeing officials have said they are struggling to find a business case for private astronaut missions because the market is so young and uncertain. Private astronaut missions are “just not at a maturity level where I can write them into any kind of business case and say yes, this is something that will get us over the hump,” John Shannon, vice president of Boeing Exploration Systems, told the Washington Post in October.
Apart from that, many technical problems with the Starliner since 2019, forcing Boeing to absorb $1.4 billion in unforeseen costs.
Starliner’s emissions delayed the CFT by four years. The spacecraft’s first unmanned flight to the ISS in 2019 failed to reach its destination. Dozens of fixes later, a second test flight without astronauts docked safely with the ISS in 2022. The CFT was further delayed in 2023 after critical problems with the parachutes, along with flammable P213 tape in the spacecraft, were discovered.
Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters during the same Thursday conference call that he was impressed by Boeing’s methodical fixes to the problems.
“The entire team from NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance and all the contractors have done an amazing job working through a myriad of issues to get the certification done and get us to this point today,” Stich said.
Wilmore and Williams, both former US Navy test pilots, arrived yesterday at KSC to continue their quarantine and preparations for the CFT’s launch. They aim to do a thorough shakedown of the spacecraft and all systems, including extensive manual flight and testing of emergency procedures such as turning on the solar panels, to help certify the Starliner for six-month missions.
If the CFT’s flight goes according to plan, the first operational mission (Starliner-1) will fly no earlier than early 2025, for a six-month period. That crew includes NASA’s Mike Fincke, NASA’s Scott Tingle and Canadian Space Agencyis Joshua Kutryk.
#Boeings #Starliner #spacecraft #wont #fly #private #missions #officials