Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft may finally take its first crewed flight next week

and cost overruns amounting to roughly $1.5 billion, is about to take its first flight with humans on board. Boeing was chosen 10 years ago alongside SpaceX to develop a spacecraft that could ferry astronauts from US soil to the International Space Station , thus allowing NASA to end its reliance on Russia for crewed flights. The companies were each awarded a fixed-price contract under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program: $4.2 billion to Boeing for its CST-100 and $2.

It’s suffered numerous other problems, too, in the years since Boeing bagged the NASA contract, causing the company to slip far behind SpaceX. There was a toxic fuel leak during a 2018 test. Then corrosion caused valves in the propulsion system to stick, waylaying Boeing’s plans for a 2021 launch, as— particularly the 737 Max line — after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, on top of other less serious incidents.

“The first crewed flight of a new spacecraft is an absolutely critical milestone,” NASA associate administrator Jim Free said during a briefing on the completion of the review. “The lives of our crewmembers Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are at stake — we don’t take that lightly at all.” The latest review is “the culmination of a detailed review season that has really thoroughly established that we are really ready to go on this flight,” said NASA chief flight director Emily Nelson.

Wilmore and Williams have been training for Starliner’s first flight for years. “They know the vehicle inside and out, and they’ve been part of the test environment that’s developed the Starliner capability,” said Steve Stich, manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. All involved in last Thursday’s briefing acknowledged that they may encounter some unexpected challenges, and that there’s much to be learned from this first crewed flight.

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