Al Root
Boeing's long-delayed Starliner spaceship is set for its first crewed mission leaving Earth on Monday.
A successful mission would be a win for the embattled commercial-aerospace giant. While it's a Boeing event, the mission will highlight SpaceX's lead over its traditional aerospace competition.
The CST-100 Starliner, Boeing's reusable space capsule, is slated to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at about 10:30 p.m. Eastern time on May 6.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will fly the ship to the International Space Station and remain for about two weeks.
It's the first crewed flight for Starliner. Boeing's first uncrewed test of the capsule came in 2019. Docking with the International Space Station failed due to a technical error. The second test slated for August 2021 was delayed due to value problems. It eventually launched in May 2022 and successfully docked, clearing the path for a crewed test. The crewed flight was originally slated for July 2023 but was delayed due to a parachute problem.
A livestream of the flight can be accessed on Boeing's website here.
Starliner competes with SpaceX's Dragon capsule. NASA, in 2014, picked Boeing and SpaceX to transport U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station, ending a reliance on Russia that existed since 2011 when the Space Shuttle flew its last mission to the ISS.
SpaceX, surprisingly, won the race to be first. The company ferried its first set of astronauts to the space station in 2020.
Maybe investors shouldn't have been surprised. SpaceX was founded in 2002 and achieved orbital flight in 2008. Its pioneered reusable rockets, built a space-based Wi-Fi business -- and carried NASA astronauts -- all before it turned 20 years old. SpaceX's ability to test things, break things, and iterate rapidly has proven a faster, lower-cost way to develop space technology.
SpaceX has become dominant in space. Through early May, it had launched 45 times in 2024. ULA, a 50/50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has launched two rockets this year.
A successful Starliner mission isn't so much about catching SpaceX as it is about creating some goodwill for Boeing. Shares, though midday trading Friday, were down about 31% year to date, underperforming the S&P 500 by some 39 percentage points.
Most of the decline came after the Jan. 5 emergency-door-plug blowout on a 737 MAX 9 jet operated by Alaska Air Group. The incident has led to questions about Boeing's manufacturing quality, and more oversight from aviation regulators.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 03, 2024 14:12 ET (18:12 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments