Boeing's Starliner Program Reaches Staggering $1.1 Billion in Losses (gizmodo.com) 78
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner program, developed for NASA since 2014, has incurred total losses exceeding $1 billion, with an additional $257 million loss announced in the second quarter of 2023. Gizmodo reports: Boeing's total losses now amount to a staggering $1.14 billion for the Starliner program. The impact of these setbacks is evident in the company's Defense, Space, and Security division, which reported a significant loss of $527 million during the second quarter, with the Starliner project accounting for a substantial portion of this downturn, according to Ars Technica. Adding insult to injury, there's still no indication as to when Starliner will perform its first flight with a crew on board.
Boeing, currently operating under a fixed-price contract with NASA, is obligated to absorb any additional costs. The company signed a $4.2 billion contract in 2014 as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, encompassing six operational Starliner missions. NASA also holds a parallel contract with SpaceX. Since 2020, SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule has completed six crewed flights for NASA, with a seventh mission planned for this coming August and an eighth tentatively planned for February 2024. Boeing has yet to fly Starliner with a crew on board, though it did perform a reasonably successful uncrewed mission in May 2022.
In its latest financial earnings statement, Boeing said the Starliner program "recorded a $257 million loss primarily due to the impacts of the previously announced launch delay." The company initially aimed for a Crew Flight Test (CFT) launch on July 1, with NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore destined for the International Space Station (ISS). However, Boeing announced an indefinite delay to the launch on June 1 due to the discovery of two major safety issues. The first problem has to do with the load capacity of Starliner's three parachutes, designed to ensure a safe landing for the crew vehicle. The fabric sections of the parachutes have a failure load limit lower than anticipated, implying that if one parachute fails, the remaining two would be incapable of adequately decelerating the spacecraft for its landing in New Mexico. The second issue involves hundreds of feet of protective tape used to insulate the wiring harnesses inside the Starliner vehicle, which were found to be flammable. Mark Nappi, Boeing Starliner program manager and vice president, explained during the June briefing that it's too late to remove the flammable tape without inflicting further damage to the vehicle. Instead, Boeing and NASA are considering solutions involving additional wrapping over the existing tape in high-risk areas to mitigate fire hazards. On Wednesday, Boeing President and CEO David Calhoun said: "On Starliner, we are in lockstep with our customer. We prioritize safety and we're taking whatever time is required. We're confident in that team and committed to getting it right."
Boeing, currently operating under a fixed-price contract with NASA, is obligated to absorb any additional costs. The company signed a $4.2 billion contract in 2014 as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, encompassing six operational Starliner missions. NASA also holds a parallel contract with SpaceX. Since 2020, SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule has completed six crewed flights for NASA, with a seventh mission planned for this coming August and an eighth tentatively planned for February 2024. Boeing has yet to fly Starliner with a crew on board, though it did perform a reasonably successful uncrewed mission in May 2022.
In its latest financial earnings statement, Boeing said the Starliner program "recorded a $257 million loss primarily due to the impacts of the previously announced launch delay." The company initially aimed for a Crew Flight Test (CFT) launch on July 1, with NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore destined for the International Space Station (ISS). However, Boeing announced an indefinite delay to the launch on June 1 due to the discovery of two major safety issues. The first problem has to do with the load capacity of Starliner's three parachutes, designed to ensure a safe landing for the crew vehicle. The fabric sections of the parachutes have a failure load limit lower than anticipated, implying that if one parachute fails, the remaining two would be incapable of adequately decelerating the spacecraft for its landing in New Mexico. The second issue involves hundreds of feet of protective tape used to insulate the wiring harnesses inside the Starliner vehicle, which were found to be flammable. Mark Nappi, Boeing Starliner program manager and vice president, explained during the June briefing that it's too late to remove the flammable tape without inflicting further damage to the vehicle. Instead, Boeing and NASA are considering solutions involving additional wrapping over the existing tape in high-risk areas to mitigate fire hazards. On Wednesday, Boeing President and CEO David Calhoun said: "On Starliner, we are in lockstep with our customer. We prioritize safety and we're taking whatever time is required. We're confident in that team and committed to getting it right."
Pffft. (Score:3)
Oh I thought $21 Billion was staggering, $1.1 Billion is nothing.
Re:Pffft. (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, but this is 1.1 Billion that Boeing has to cover. Their contract is for a fixed amount, and a large part of that is to be paid after they deliver astronauts to the station and return them. They have spent 1.1 billion more than the government will pay them. In case you haven't guessed, that makes me happy.
Re:Pffft. (Score:5, Interesting)
No mod points for me today. Someone please mod parent up Insightful.
(And having worked on that $21b Army program that Boeing screwed up, all I can say is "Good on NASA for doing this firm-fixed-price, even if that wasn't a reasonable contract vehicle. Mostly I'm just sad these days seeing how Boeing continues to swallow big suck-pills from the appalling finance-oriented, versus engineering-oriented, management they inherited from McDonnell-Douglas. )
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You're happy because a key company that keeps the American transportation industry going made a $1B+ mistake and is now doing the finishing touches on a SPACECRAFT on their dime? Have you thought about the possibility that they may be a little less likely to spend STOCKHOLDER money to get outstanding issues completed with safety having a priority over cost? And in the end, it may be another $4B+ fireworks show when it explodes in transit?
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I am a little worried that so many Americans seem to want to go with SpaceX as the only launch provider in the US, or even in the world. I think it's good that the government is keeping with the strategy of having at least two* launch providers, although it is disconcerting the Boeing, once probably the most reliable aerospace firm in the business, is having so many problems.
It does seem that Boeing is getting a bit more stringent oversight than SpaceX did. SpaceX literally had their capsule explode [youtube.com] during
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They did a LOT of tests. And the tests pushed the edge. So, yeah, "such things happen" is the right attitude.
OTOH, Boeing seems to be having so many problems with so many projects, that I wouldn't give them a contract to clean a dog park. Even at fixed price.
I do agree that we should have at least two companies (three would be better), but I'm not at all happy with the current Boeing being one of the two.
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They did a LOT of tests. And the tests pushed the edge. So, yeah, "such things happen" is the right attitude.
They did the absolute minimum number of tests required by NASA.
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Not correct. The test they were doing on the capsule when it exploded was not one that NASA required.
Wanting to find any issues that could happen, they shook the life out of it - much more than launch vibrations - on a shake table and proceeded straight to a test firing. It seems that under this extreme shaking a check valve bounced, allowed oxidizer vapors past, which then condensed in a chilled part of the lines. This caused ignition when that slug of liquid nitrous hit the closed valve when pressurized.
T
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Well, if we think they cut corners we don't accept the spacecraft as delivered. They don't get paid their fee, and they probably don't win the next contract. Soon they're out of the business and the actual people who *do* stuff get jobs with their competitors.
Boeing is a serial abuser of cost plus contracts, lowballing bids, running up costs, and demanding (and receiving) performance bonuses on late overbudget projects from excessively compliant contract managers. It has a history of hiring government offi
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they lost $ 1Billion over the course of 9 years ($111 Million/year) on a single program they committed to, otherwise, that extra cost would be eaten by NASA... In those 9 years they made $85 Billion in Profit on $739 Billion in Revenue.. most of it from US government anyhow... so no matter what.. they lose a little here, they make up for it elsewhere.
Not sure I really give a rats ass about them losing on a single program while it's in development... once it's up and technology is mature- they'll be making h
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"I'll save my tears for someone else."
Maybe for the people whose homes have the next gen space shuttle's debris raining on their house in flames? Or the astronauts aboard?
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$1.1 Billion is nothing.
Came to say the same.
Even if it was a loss of cash -- which it isn't -- the amount would literally be pocket change. According to their latest financial report [boeing.com] they have over 7 billion in cash on hand, and over 130B in assets.
And even then, this isn't a loss of "we had 7 billion in cash, now we have 6 billion".
Starliner has been in planning since early 2000's, officially announced publicly 13 years ago. It has been a long-term investment the company has funded as it goes. This announcement is a reach-fo
The second issue: flammable tape (Score:2)
The second issue involves hundreds of feet of protective tape used to insulate the wiring harnesses inside the Starliner vehicle, which were found to be flammable.... Boeing and NASA are considering solutions involving additional wrapping over the existing tape in high-risk areas to mitigate fire hazards.
(a) I'm hoping the extra "over wrap" tape will be a different, non-flammable tape -- even though this "solution" seems dubious. I mean, that's kinda obvious, but apparently needs to be said because of (b).
(b) How did no one think to test the flammability of this tape, before using it, apparently, everywhere -- especially given how much NASA, you know, *really* dislikes "fire in space" (*cough* Apollo 1 [wikipedia.org] *cough*).
(c) Is some Boeing employee having this "Archer moment": "Well I learned inflammable and fla
Re: The second issue: flammable tape (Score:2)
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Maybe they tested it in that underwater tank astronauts use for simulating zero gravity?
Re: The second issue: flammable tape (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not for a spacecraft they didn't. This is a problem with the spec, I guarantee it. You don't fuck around on material for a build-once m
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You wish.
There have been lots of instances of sub-spec parts being shipped by suppliers. We don't know how many, because
1) most don't show up in the news and
2) only the ones that are detected are ever known about.
They don't all ever matter, because lots to times the part never gets put under maximum stress. But they *could* matter. And the reason for the specs is to handle extreme situations.
So the problem is a LOT larger than is ever visible.
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I blame the no smoking policies. If people still smoked, someone would have been playing with their lighter and discovered that the tape was flammable.
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Re: The second issue: flammable tape (Score:2)
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Do not know the details here, but worked in r&d for a while. I suspect the tape is only flammable under some specific condition that no one thought about before. When you do new stuff, you learn new things. Want guarantees? Buy a toaster.
Sure, but I imagine there's been non-flammable tape around for a *while* -- and even used in spacecraft -- and neither that tape or spacecraft are that new.
Re: The second issue: flammable tape (Score:2)
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Another user posted [slashdot.org] some useful info ...
The tape seems to be glass cloth tape that's rated up to 350 C. It's used in Starliner mostly for scuff protection on wiring. The problem is that Boeing used it on some higher power wiring where the temperature might exceed the specs if there were a short.
https://aviationweek.com/aeros... [aviationweek.com]
http://everyspec.com/MIL-SPECS... [everyspec.com]
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I was joking about it, but I looked at articles from when this was announced and it seems like the problem is that the tape was tested fine as not flammable, they realized thought too late that the adhesive itself is flammable :|
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“We can’t have anything flammable in there, what about that tape?”
- “Well, half of it is inflammable, so we’re good I guess”
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Inflammable means "easily set on fire." I hope that wasn't a justification for using it.
Re: The second issue: flammable tape (Score:2)
They did think of it, they discovered the flammability in the exact atmospheric conditions they use after the fact. How they didnâ(TM)t test it earlier I donâ(TM)t know.
Re: The second issue: flammable tape (Score:2)
Re: The second issue: flammable tape (Score:1)
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Nice try, but the Apollo 1 fire has no bearing on this present issue.
Yes the lesson learned was 100% oxygen environments are dangerous for fires. Hence the Starliner and all other craft use more conventional blends of breathing gases and higher pressures.
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Apollo 1 was more than 50 years ago. They don't seem to have learned much since
Exactly the opposite. On Apollo 1, flammability of components wasn't even a concern. On Starliner, flammability is such a concern that the response is "do not fly until that flammable component has been replaced with a non-combustable one."
Re:The second issue: flammable tape (Score:4, Interesting)
The generally accepted explanation is that there are two different 3M tapes, both glass fibre reinforced: P-213, which uses a flammable acrylic adhesive, and P-212 that uses a less flammable silicone adhesive. They used the P-213 tape. It is possible that somewhere along the line, a requirement to use the silicone P-212 got switched with a requirement to use the much more common acrylic P-213. It is only one number, after all.
Interesting thing I just saw - they had to do the same swap on Dragon, long ago - https://twitter.com/FabioDaRoc... [twitter.com]
On an unrelated side note, does anyone remember, a few years ago, a line of printers whose scanners used a compression algorithm that had the nasty habit of swapping numbers around in scanned documents?
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The tape seems to be glass cloth tape that's rated up to 350 C. It's used in Starliner mostly for scuff protection on wiring. The problem is that Boeing used it on some higher power wiring where the temperature might exceed the specs if there were a short.
https://aviationweek.com/aeros... [aviationweek.com]
http://everyspec.com/MIL-SPECS... [everyspec.com]
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Thanks! That was actually informative and helpful.
Oh don't you worry about Boeing (Score:3)
We'll bail them out with taxpayer money and everything's gonna be allright.
This is the least of the Boeing onslaught. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I am pretty sure their defence department not delivering for NASA does not help alleviate any of their other problems. They destroyed the company when they essentially let McDonnell Douglas culture take over after their merger, so the downward spiral has been 25 years in the works...
The good news is that finally NASA doesn't have to pay for a contractor's ineptitude. Well, they do have the SLS to worry, but that's another story..
Re:This is the least of the Boeing onslaught. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just an excuse. First, the merger happened decades ago. Second, the previous Boeing CEO, the one who is responsible for all this shit, used to be one of Boeing engineers even before the merger.
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Dennis Muilenberg, who was the Boeing PM on Future Combat Systems where I observed him closely, was selected precisely because he fit into the New Corporate Mold that the McDonnell culture brought into Boeing. The problems we saw on FCS showed up when Muilenberg went to Dreamliner, and then to the company at large.
Boeing culture took a huge shift away from engineering and towards 'business' 25 years ago, and it'll take a lot of time and effort to fix that. All those idiots who were promoted during the Bad
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On FCS, Boeing used "number of employment ads for programming language" as one justification for using C. Government responded, "If that's your metric, shouldn't you be using HTML? Don't pretend there's an engineering basis for this decision." Boeing Commercial presented substantial cost analysis on their use of Ada on 777. "It cost 25% more to develop than other languages we've used over the last 30 years, but saved an order of magnitude in test and integration, which is where the real costs are." B
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Ada isn't really that much better. What was better was the culture of make sure everything works, and then test that it actually does. Doing that in C or C++ is perfectly possible, but doing it with a random collection of C or C++ hotshots isn't. And Ada had its own problems.
Note that doing it properly in C or C++ would still have cost them about 25% more. Cutting corners leads to more problems. But don't blame the language. (I wonder what corners Rust encourages people to cut. They WILL be there.)
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That's not what that group at Boeing reported. They reported Ada was better than the -set of other languages- they had used, including C, Jovial, FORTRAN and a bunch of other stuff, all of which came in at approximately the same price/schedule in their calibrated cost models. Part of this has to do with how to design for the specific test regime required by DO-178B, so they were using a specific stylized set of coding standards, not "anything goes" in either Ada or C.
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It is better where it matters. C has a lot of undefined behaviour and it is far easier to write unreadable code in it.
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Thus: "you can't do it with a random collection of hotshot programmers".
You need to do it in the context of a culture that values stability, understandability, reliability, etc. And you need to check that it actually meets the specs.
Most programmers like the language they are most used to. They are most comfortable in it, and know where to avoid pushing it. For this kind of project you need reliable, stable, compilers, and you must NOT push the edges. I like lots of things about Ada, and the Spark subse
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I know people who would probably come out of retirement to work on a good Ada project...
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Ya get what ya pay for. It's interesting how many of my friends trained in Ada are now senior people making big bucks doing what one of them called "Ada in C syntax," but without the support the Ada compiler provides. And the rest of them are happily retired, not having to debug bad code written by script-kiddies with "learn to code" level of knowledge.
My back-of-the-envelope estimate was that by 1995 there were at least 20k people who had significant exposure (week long course or better) to Ada.
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The problem is not Boeing culture, the problem is the modern American corporate culture in general. It sucks. I have worked for a company for a decade, my manager for 25 years. Then it was acquired by an American company, they have introduced American corporate culture, the atmosphere turned to shit and half of the staff left. Now they pay my new employer for my knowledge because they haven't been able to find a replacement for me in the 18 months since I have left.
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Boeing's refueling tanker KC-46 contract for Air Force wasn't a Cost+ and it's costing Boeing dearly despite the number of planes ordered.
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That's a list for sure, but in many cases none of that is any of Boeing's concern. ... just there, also an airline, Joby is not at all competing in the airline market, flights aren't being cancelled in any abnormal meaningful way that would impact Boeing's orders or production, oil futures literally is not part of their business, customer
Travel restrictions are mostly lifted, passport backlogs are a problem only in a select few countries, pandemic losses saw a large injection in funds for Boeing, Airbus is
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Boeing has headwinds greater than their government contracts. Its hard to believe NASA is their greatest concern right now. Friction with China, The super max 737 fiasco, travel restrictions, passport backlogs, pandemic losses, Airbus, Space X, Joby and other electric flight that don't require airports, massive flight cancellations, oil futures, global warming, a customer base and travel insurance industry that hates bad weather, and a 1% that expects much more from first class than legroom... I'd say they are totally screwed in their immediate future outlook. Failing to deliver to NASA is probably the smart move, all things considered. They may never want to move forward, at this point... this excuse for poor stock valuation might just buy enough time tor executives and k street to sell off their shares quietly before it gets really ugly. But who knows for sure whats really a problem for the rest of the economy..
BWahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
/wheeze
BWahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Ha, you kill me.
Boeing has 2 major issues at the moment, the 737 no-one wants to buy and the 787 that is universally reviled by passengers. Also the 777x that no-one wants to buy, but they haven't even finished that one just yet. The 150-200 seat narrowbody market is insane right now, Airbus cannot open it's order books for the A320 family fast enough, so much so the A380 production line ha
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I think electric planes may eventually capture the short-haul traffic. But, yeah, that's not Boeing's problem. Their problem is "Who in their right mind would trust them?".
Real Story (Score:3)
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That feels like a real difference between SpaceX and Boeing. SpaceX is building a product and is willing to invest in it. Boeing is servicing a contract and investment hurts the bottom line.
Boeing Can Survive (Score:2)
If it's Boeing, it's not going (Score:1)
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The idea "we need at least two suppliers" seems to have been imported from the DoD.
In actual fact, Starliner doesn't seem to be much worse than Crew Dragon. It's just that when Crew Dragon has problems (and it has. Parachute problems, thruster problems, docking clamp problems, toilet problems, even explosion of one of their capsules during testing), the response has been more subdued.
Fixed cost contract (Score:1)
"Boeing, currently operating under a fixed-price contract with NASA, is obligated to absorb any additional costs."
Fucking GREAT.
You bid it, you deliver it for that bid you scheming fucks.
More gov't contracts need to be fixed-cost.
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yes, but... (Score:3)
this did not keep SpaceX from succeeding quite spectacularly.
Remember: NASA had so much confidence in their traditional big aerospace contractors, and so little in the new upstarts, that for commercial crew they shut-out Sierra and the Dream Chaser (which proceeded on its own anyway, reconfigured for unmanned cargo runs which it is to begin making shortly) and awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion USD contract, and SpaceX only a $2.6 billion USD contract.
What NASA missed (likely because of historic ties and also th
Perfect example of sunk cost fallacy... (Score:2)
This is a perfect example of sunk cost fallacy... they continue to throw endless good money after bad.
With SpaceX dragon flying flawlessly (and to think Boeing thought they would beat SpaceX with Starliner lol), and NASA now having the Orion space capsule, there is just no place for starliner.
Just cancel this turd and move on. It simply has no reason to exist anymore, and they continue to throw good money after bad.
do not kill boeing (Score:2)
Sending Boeing into bankruptcy would be a really bad outcome. The US needs Boeing both for civilian and military aviation. NASA should just let them out of their contract and give up on starliner, or figure out whether they want to get it at double the cost, like Pentagon projects.
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Did Boeing not spec non-flammable tape?!? (Score:2)