NASA is worried that Boeing’s Starliner isn’t safe

• Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has had a rocky development road and failed an uncrewed flight test.
• NASA's independent review board is concerned with Boeing's recent history of missteps.
• The company will be forced to retry its uncrewed mission before trying a crewed test flight sometime next year.

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When NASA first selected both Boeing and SpaceX to lead development on new crewed spacecraft as part of its Commercial Crew program, some saw SpaceX as the wild card. Boeing, a longtime NASA contractor, was expected to finish its Starliner spacecraft well in advance of SpaceX's Crew Dragon. That was what some assumed, at least. The reality has been much different.

SpaceX jumped ahead early and never looked back, completing its uncrewed test flights and then sending a pair of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station successfully. Meanwhile, Boeing has fumbled the ball at many points during the development of Starliner, with its most drastic snafu coming during the uncrewed test flight that was forced to abort a trip to the ISS after a glitch threw a wrench in things.

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NASA is worried that Boeing’s Starliner isn’t safe originally appeared on BGR.com on Tue, 28 Jul 2020 at 19:09:45 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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