Boeing Co.’s Starliner capsule will separate from the International Space Station on Friday evening. This will be another event in the difficult spacecraft’s story.
After taking Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the orbiting space lab in June, Starliner will return to Earth without any people. They will have to wait until early 2025 to take a ride home with Boeing BA -0.66% competitor SpaceX.
NASA’s choice of SpaceX to bring the astronauts back to Earth while Starliner was having trouble was bad news for Boeing. What will happen next with Starliner?
“Baker recently lost when its Starliner capsule failed on its first human space flight,” Wells Fargo analyst Matthew Akers wrote about Boeing this week in a note. “It’s not clear if NASA will want BA to do more flight tests before they can start flying people again.” Akers also said that Starliner has already spent about $1.6 billion more than the original $4.2 billion fixed-price contract.
This week, Wells Fargo lowered its rating on Boeing to “underweight.” They did this by citing a number of risks for the coming year, such as union negotiations, the integration of Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. SPR -0.18%, falling airline yields, continued regulatory pressure, technical problems with the 777X jetliner, and, of course, Starliner’s problems.
For months, NASA and Boeing have been working to fix problems with Starliner’s thrusters and helium leaks. The rocket took off on June 5 and arrived at the ISS the next day. At first, it was thought that the capsule would stay at the space lab for at least eight days before it took the two men home. It’s been over 90 days since they got there.
A representative for Boeing told MarketWatch, “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft.” “We are carrying out the mission as ordered by NASA, and we are getting the spacecraft ready for a safe and successful return without crew.”
After Wells Fargo’s warning, Boeing shares fell sharply. On Thursday, they were down 0.3%. So far in 2024, the stock is down 37.5%, while the S&P 500 index has gained 15.6% (SPX -0.30%).
When NASA first talked about the idea of Williams and Wilmore taking a ride with SpaceX, Boeing said that Starliner could still safely take the astronauts back to Earth. The choice about SpaceX was made by NASA on August 24. Boeing was not at the press conference.
The Crew Flight Test, which has been pushed back several times in the past few years, is the Starliner capsule’s first journey with people on board. SpaceX, on the other hand, has a full plan of crewed launches and has sent several people to the ISS since its first crewed test flight in May 2020.
MarketWatch talked to physics professor Ehud Behar at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He said that he wasn’t surprised by NASA’s choice. “Everyone knows that going into space with people is risky,” he said. I think it would have been very strange if they let the pilots fly back on Starliner. “Be safe than sorry.”
Even though the Starliner Crew Flight Test didn’t go as planned, Behar believes that Boeing will continue to play a big role in NASA’s work to send people into space. The company Boeing is very big and has a lot of resources. He said, “It should be in a good spot to compete.” “If I worked for NASA, I’d do everything I could to keep Boeing in the game.”
“I think the whole idea of privatizing space is really new,” Behar, who worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland from 2007 to 2009, said. “SpaceX is the leader in private space launches and the private space business, but there needs to be competition.”
When asked about Starliner at the Aug. 24 press meeting, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said it is “an important part” of NASA’s plan to get crews to the ISS.
NASA says that the Starliner will leave the ISS no earlier than September 6 at 6:04 p.m. Eastern time. About six hours will pass before the spaceship lands at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. It is set to do so at 12:03 a.m. Eastern Time on September 7. NASA said in a statement, “Recovery teams at the landing zone will make sure the spacecraft is safe and get it ready for a return to Boeing’s Starliner factory at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.”
“What the empty spacecraft return means is still unknown,” Sheila Kahyaoglu, an analyst at Jefferies, wrote in a note on August 26. “The test was planned to make BA available for crewed missions in FY25, but we need more information now.” NASA has made it clear that it wants two providers for the program. However, NASA and BA have different ideas about how safe the program is for return flights.
Kahyaoglu said that there is probably a limited amount of time, since the ISS is set to be shut down in 2030. “The risk would be ongoing cost overruns and delays as Boeing tries to finish its six contracted missions (compared to SpaceX’s 14), with SpaceX having already finished eight missions and Boeing having not,” she said.
NASA gave Boeing a $4.2 billion deal in September 2014 as part of its Commercial Crew program. A $2.6 billion deal was given to SpaceX.
Boeing has also worked with the International Space Station for a long time. In 2010, they officially gave NASA control of the part of the space lab that is in orbit. The company is still helping the International Space Station with technical tasks and processing for lab experiment racks. NASA and Boeing also work together on the huge Space Launch System, which is called “the only rocket capable of carrying crew and large cargo to deep space in a single launch.”
