Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not fly private missions yet, officials say
- by Space.com
- Apr 27, 2024
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SpaceX sent its first test mission to the ISS in 2020 and has provided 11 more astronaut flights to the complex since: Eight half-year missions for NASA, and three approximately two-week missions for private astronaut company Axiom Space.
Axiom is in fact just one private entity that uses SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. In 2021, for example, Shift4 billionaire and private pilot Jared Isaacman flew to Earth orbit with three civilians on a mission known as Inspiration4. Isaacman next bought three more Crew Dragon missions for a three-mission private series known as the Polaris Program. The first of the trio, Polaris Dawn, may fly with Isaacman and three other people as soon as this year and feature the first commercial spacecraft.
The Inspiration4 crew posing inside the Dragon Crew cupola against the backdrop of Earth. From left: billionaire Jared Isaacman, Christopher Sembroski, Sian Proctor and Hayley Arceneaux.
(Image credit: Inspiration4)
Despite all of these private missions flown with SpaceX, Boeing officials have said they are struggling to find a business case for private astronaut missions as the market is so young and uncertain. Private astronaut missions are "just not at a level of maturity where I can write them into any kind of a business case and say that yeah, this is something that's going to kind of get us over the hump," John Shannon, vice president of Boeing Exploration Systems, told the Washington Post in October.
Aside from that, numerous technical problems with Starliner since 2019 forced Boeing to absorb $1.4 billion in unanticipated costs.
Starliner's issues delayed CFT by four years. The spacecraft's first uncrewed flight to the ISS in 2019 failed to reach its destination. Dozens of fixes later, a second test flight without astronauts safely docked with the ISS in 2022. CFT was delayed further in 2023 after critical issues with the parachutes, along with flammable P213 tape in the spacecraft, was discovered.
Steve Stich, program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told reporters during the same Thursday teleconference that he was impressed at Boeing's methodical fixes to the issues.
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