Issues appear fairly bleak over there.
Curses
Boeing’s Starliner, its crew capsule that rivals SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, has clearly been cursed from the beginning — and its most up-to-date issues run far deeper than initial reports steered.
The excellent news is that there’s n onetheless an opportunity Starliner goes to make its May 19 International Space Station launch date
The unhealthy information is that the underlying valve concern that’s resulted in repeated setbacks is probably going going to require a full redesign, yet one more potential complication.
“A valve redesign is certainly on the desk,” Boeing vp Mark Nappi mentioned throughout a Wednesday information convention after information of Boeing clashing with valve manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne first broke. “As soon as we get all the data that we’d like, we’ll make that call.”
Expensive Errors
As CNBC notes, Boeing has spent upwards of $600 million further {dollars} to this point because of the repeated setbacks plaguing the launch of its Starliner spacecraft.
The cursed launch has been considered by many because the airplane producer’s shedding gambit to compete with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. Each corporations have been below contract with NASA to determine a brand new dependable approach to launch astronauts into area.
Whereas SpaceX has launched five crewed missions to the ISS up to now, Boeing has been caught in growth hell and has but to ship an uncrewed Starliner to the orbital outpost.
Nonetheless, the continued delays — a lot of which seem to have stemmed from the identical valve concern — appear to have displeased NASA, who, in a uncommon about-face, re-assigned astronauts to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon from Starliner final 12 months after Boeing failed to get its capsule into stable orbit.
In different phrases: it appears like there’s much more hassle in aerospace manufacturing paradise than we thought.
READ MORE: Boeing considers redesigning problematic valve that has kept Starliner from flying NASA astronauts [CNBC]
Extra on Starliner’s fails: Piece Falls Off Boeing Starliner As It Trundles Toward Launchpad
