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Thruster failures turned Starliner’s docking with the orbiting lab into a white-knuckle near-disaster for astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams during its first crewed flight in June 2024. NASA officials decided the return trip was too risky and flew the craft back to Earth autonomously, leaving the crew to hitch a ride aboard rival SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. For the duo, what was supposed to be an eight-day excursion turned into a 286-day space odyssey.
It was a low moment during an epically bad year for Boeing, with the relentless global coverage of the manufacturer’s quality lapses even inspiring Rolling Stones lyrics3. At the time, leaders of the cash-strapped company wouldn’t commit to completing development of the spacecraft, which has rung up $2.02 billion in cost overruns on a contract initially valued at $4.2 billion.
Starliner not only survived, the spacecraft is now positioned to play a greater role in the U.S. government’s plans for Low Earth Orbit into the 2030s than many in the space community expected as questions swirl over SpaceX’s plans. But first, Boeing has to convince a skeptical customer, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, that it has finally addressed the propulsion system failures that led to a temporary total loss of control for astronauts Wilmore and Williams.
“I think there is a bigger story here than most people realize in the community,” Clayton Swope, deputy director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Air Current. “It’s in some way a reflection of market forces that are going to shape Starliner.”
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