According to the research firm Jefferies, Boeing Co. has lost more than $1 billion that it expects to lose because of problems with its Starliner spaceship.
NASA announced on Saturday that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return to Earth on a SpaceX ship next February. This comes after problems with the Starliner spacecraft that took them to the International Space Station. Nasa said the Starliner ship will return without any people on board.
The flight test was the first trip with people on board the Starliner. It was a big step forward for both NASA and Boeing BA -0.85%. But since its launch was pushed back in June, Starliner has had problems with helium leaks and thrusters. This is why NASA chose SpaceX, which is run by Elon Musk, to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth. At first, it was thought that the capsule would stay at the orbiting space lab for at least eight days before returning the two men to Earth. It’s been over 70 days since they got there.
“In 2014, NASA gave BA a $4.2BB contract under the Commercial Crew contract to take astronauts to and from the ISS on the Starliner spacecraft, which would be launched on a ULA Atlas V rocket,” Sheila Kahyaoglu, an analyst at Jefferies, wrote in a note Monday. “From the beginning, British Aerospace’s offering has been late. SpaceX launched piloted flights in May 2020, and British Aerospace has yet to begin crewed non-test missions.”
Jefferies says that Boeing has recorded about $1.5 billion in forward losses so far. “This comes after BA completed the Uncrewed Orbital Flight test in Q2 2022 as it worked towards the Crewed Flight Test that was supposed to happen in July 2023 and finally happened in June 2024, but the empty return changed that plan,” she wrote. “NASA’s FY25 budget currently includes money for Boeing’s CTS-1, which will be the first non-test flight with crew.”
NASA’s choice to work with SpaceX and send Starliner back to Earth without any people on board is “another hit” for Boeing’s Defence, Space, and Security business. According to Kahyaoglu, this will lead to an expected $2 billion in free cash flow for BDS in 2024 and an estimated $1.4 billion in 2025, which Jefferies said is likely risky.
Monday, shares of Boeing fell 0.8%, and the S&P 500 SPX -0.32% fell 0.3%. Boeing wasn’t at the NASA press meeting on Saturday. Boeing Space said on social media on Saturday that NASA had decided to “autonomously return” Starliner from the International Space Station. The company said in a statement, “We continue to put the safety of the crew and spacecraft first.” “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.”
MarketingWatch talked to Mark Perez, chief investments officer at Linqto, a private investing tool that lets individual investors access to private early-stage companies. Perez said that Boeing will get through the current Starliner problems. “Do I think Boeing’s time in space is over?” “No,” he replied. “That place has so much history built into it.”
Axiom Space, Space Perspective, and Quantum Space are some of the big and small private space companies that Linqto works with.
Boeing has worked with the International Space Station for a long time, and 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.”
SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission won’t leave for the ISS until at least September 24, and Wilmore and Williams should be back home in February.
SpaceX has kept up a busy schedule of both crewed and uncrewed launches, which is very different from Boeing’s Starliner problems. They sent a crewed test flight to the International Space Station in May 2020 on a Falcon 9 rocket. It was the first time since 2011 that U.S. astronauts took off from American land for a trip into space. Since then, the company’s Crew Dragon ship has taken several trips to the ISS with people on board.
SpaceX wants to launch the first of the three private Polaris Program missions for people on August 27 at 3:38 a.m. Eastern Time. The company will do its first commercial spacewalk on Polaris Dawn, its first flight.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will carry Polaris Dawn into space, where it will stay for up to five days with four scientists and 36 experiments.
