US astronauts Snie Williams and Butch Willmore are scheduled to return to Earth this week, ending a nine-month mission at the International Space Station, which is expected to last eight days, but this time they are not planning the Boeing Starliner spacecraft first.
Instead, as Williams said in a rare briefing from space last week, “We Riders on the Dragon,” a capsule made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The switch shows strong approvals of the ISS crew and vehicles that starred in the cargo missions, as well as the humiliating reminders of the troubles that are worrisome the space sector.
NASA determined in August that the CST-100 starliner, which carried the astronaut to the ISS in June, could not be used due to thruster issues that marked an outward journey and helium leaks.
Engineers at the Aerospace Group claimed that the spacecraft is still safe, and Starliner’s return to Earth in September was past its safe. But we decided, “We don’t trust you,” the former senior agency director who worked on the Starliner project, added that this is now the toughest example of a “loss of trust” that colores the relationship between the US space agency and Boeing.
NASA, which has not publicly criticized Boeing, declined to comment.
Boeing has been a favourable partner for NASA for decades with its most challenging program, flying Apollo astronauts into space from the giant Saturn v-rocket of the 1960s, extending to ISS design, construction and maintenance.
Starliner was supposed to prove the company’s ability to run in a new world of space procurement, where the private sector, not NASA, owns rockets and hardware, and sells cargo and crew services to the US Space Agency.
From the beginning, many NASA officials estimated that Boeing was a better bet to deliver trustworthy spacecraft to the ISS to the ferry crew as part of the commercial crew development race launched in 2010.
However, after serial issues and delays left it five years later on SpaceX, it became a symbol of the wrong things in Boeing’s space business.
Visitors at NASA Space Station in Florida, hours before Apollo 12 exploded on mission to the moon in November 1969 ©Charles Ley/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
Boeing has not separated space revenues from defense, but it is estimated by analysts that it accounts for less than 7% of group sales. However, it has disclosed several losses, including a cumulative hit of around $2 billion on Starliner over a fixed price agreement a decade ago, and several losses, including a charge of at least $315 million on the problematic commercial satellite.
Meanwhile, the work to upgrade the core of NASA’s Deep Space Rocket, the $24 billion space launch system, came due to catastrophic criticism from the office of an inspector, the space agency’s independent auditor.
Criticism revealed in Boeing’s commercial aircraft division after the fatal crash of the 737 biggest passenger jets in 2018 and 2019: a shift from engineering culture to prioritizing shareholder returns, poor quality control procedures and questionable management of safety concerns.
In an evaluation of the SLS upgrade released in August, NASA auditors discovered “deteriorating under repeated product quality control.” Boeing said in a statement it opposed “many of these claims.”
However, a former NASA executive who worked with Boeing on both Starliner and SLS speaks about the company’s leadership, which lacked engineering expertise at the time, and the company’s leadership that failed to address major program delays and cost overruns. Frequently, they said the fallback was to ask for more money.
“We observed the depth of technical things and the erosion of understanding,” the former senior manager said. “We couldn’t really find a Boeing program that actually worked except perhaps the space station management. But the leader acted as if you solved your trust issues through lobbying.”
Boeing declined to comment on the proposal that moved from an engineering culture to a shareholder return priority.
Boeing was consistently ranked in the top 20 spenders between 2010 and 2023, according to Open Secrets, a nonprofit that tracks corporate lobbying in the US.
Dragon capsules are lifted on rescue ships after they splashed off Florida in September last year ©Polaris Program/AFP Getty Images
The company was awarded more than $200 billion in NASA contracts around the same time, according to the government’s spending watchdog.
Meanwhile, Craig Garriot, a lead union steward for satellite workers at a Boeing factory in El Segundo, California, is suing the company for negligence and retaliation after filing a safety violation. He says satellite workers are aware of complaints collected by people in building aircraft. It says that the “tribal knowledge” of the skilled workforce has been eroded and eroded while shareholders are taking priority.
Staff at the California factory have been pushed to do their jobs too quickly, and they have started registering for jobs that they have not completed themselves, he told the Financial Times. “We end up doing a lot of redoing,” he said. “We’re going to be beyond budget and later than planned.”
Boeing told the FT it investigated the case and challenged the allegations. “There is a strict policy that prohibits retaliation against employees raising concerns, and Boeing did not retaliate against Garriot.”
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams left the Operations and Checkout Building in Cape Canaveral, Florida in June last year ©Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of satellite operator SES, said in 2023 that Boeing-manufactured O3B satellite had serious power issues. “We have a detailed audit of manufacturing and its quality control,” he said, arguing that O3B’s failures were due to its complexity.
However, he said Boeing, like most legacy satellite makers, has not learned to innovate quickly enough in space environments converted by SpaceX. Legacy companies that are used to government funding are not being used to tackle tighter schedules and budgets, he said.
Several former NASA directors believe the agency shares blame with Boeing for delays in the program. From 2010 to 2014, Dandanbacher, who was the assistant manager of the agency’s human exploration and operations team, said NASA suffers from a deadly shuttle mission and is losing confidence in managing the risks needed to deliver the project safely and on time.
“There’s little development expertise and there’s a workforce living in the environment, which makes it more risk-averse,” he said. “That risk aversion led to conservatism and delayed decision-making.”
NASA also failed to recognize the challenges posed by the move to purchasing services rather than rockets.
Moving from a government-funded program to a competitive approach using fixed-price contracts has been a fundamental departure for traditional contractors like Boeing, according to Doug Loverro, who led NASA human exploration and operational activities for six months from 2019 to 2020.
“Boeing has not been able to demonstrate the level of self-direction and self-regulation required for such tasks,” he said.
NASA did not respond to requests for comment.
Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Autoberg has concluded a review raising questions about the company’s future in space.
Some analysts say that calling time in business might be the smartest move given the much greater potential reward for rectifying the business of commercial aircraft.
George Pullen, space economist at Milkyway Economy, a new industry think tank, insists that Boeing doesn’t need to be afraid of quitting space.
“Space is only 4% of the Pentagon’s budget,” he said. “If they withdraw, they don’t miss the huge defence budget.”
Additional Reports by Sylvia Pfeifer in London
