Kapsula astronauta Boeing Starliner košta blizu 700 miliona dolara

Boeing disclosed a charge of $93 million u drugoj četvrtini for its Starliner astronaut capsule program, bringing the program’s overrun costs to nearly $700 million.

The aerospace giant said the latest charge was “primarily driven by launch manifest updates and additional costs associated with OFT-2,” or Orbital Flight Test 2. The second uncrewed flight of Starliner successfully completed a six-day-long mission in May, reaching a critical test objective – docking with the International Space Station – as Boeing prepares for the capsule to carry astronauts.

Boeing’s latest Starliner-related charge means the company has absorbed $688 million in costs from delays and additional work on the capsule to date.

The company has been developing its Starliner spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, having won nearly $5 billion in contracts to build the capsule. Boeing’s program competes with Elon mošus SpaceX, which finished development of its Crew Dragon spacecraft and is now na svom četvrtom operativnom ljudskom svemirskom letu za NASA-u.

Boeing was once seen as evenly matched with SpaceX in the race to launch NASA astronauts, but fell behind due to development setbacks.

The next Starliner mission is expected to be the Crew Flight Test, or CFT, flying the first astronauts onboard the capsule. However, Boeing is examining whether to redesign u Aerojet Rocketdyne-napravljeni pogonski ventili na Starlineru, koji su se pokvarili tokom prvog pokušaja kompanije da lansira misiju OFT-2 u avgustu 2021.