Boeing’s Starliner saga is actually a NASA policy success

“Delayed again” has become a familiar phrase for Boeing’s Starliner. Two new issues were discovered with the spacecraft just last month, resulting in an indefinite delay to its crewed debut, originally planned for July. The newest setback adds to the long tale of woe for a vehicle designed to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. Starliner was first unveiled 13 years ago, and plans to deorbit the very station it will serve are now seven years away. 

But despite the appearance of failure, the Starliner saga in fact reveals governmental policy success: NASA’s decision to simultaneously fund two distinct vehicles to bring astronauts to the ISS — SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner — via fixed-price contracts. In a competition for funding with multiple commercial entrants, awarding contracts to two companies provided redundancy and insured NASA against a single company’s failure; fixed-price contracts ensured controlled costs to NASA and to the taxpayer. And some non-selected entrants and concepts awarded initial funding in earlier rounds can still be developed if there is interest outside NASA. This strategy should be replicated moving forward as NASA refocuses on pursuing exploration outside of low-Earth orbit. 

NASA launched the Commercial Crew Program, the project behind these spacecraft, to kickstart private-sector transportation of astronauts to the ISS after the retirement of the space shuttle. The initiative involved multiple phases of competition. In 2010, the first phase awarded $50 million in total funding to five companies working on technologies and concepts, not vehicles themselves. Several rounds and awards later, NASA chose SpaceX and Boeing to develop different spacecraft to achieve the same objective: deliver astronauts to the ISS. 

Starliner’s first test was planned for 2017. Delays and design issues pushed it back to late 2019, and problems with the spacecraft’s internal clock during launch led to an incorrect orbit. The second test, which was successful, did not occur until May 2022 due to problems with the propulsion system and a new ISS docking module. The crew flight test was pushed to summer 2023 after a busy ISS launch schedule and to address issues that arose during the second test. In May, the chair of a safety panel recommended against rushing the mission, and NASA acknowledged issues with the parachutes and wiring tape. The indefinite delay was announced days later. 

For SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, however, it is a different story. SpaceX has been regularly transporting astronauts to orbit aboard the vessel for several years now, both for NASA and other private clients, such as Axiom Space. 

Choosing both was crucial. Had NASA picked only Boeing to produce an ISS spacecraft, or chosen only SpaceX and its Crew Dragon had not been as successful — even in a competition to win a contract — the United States might still be relying on Russia to get astronauts to the ISS.

The second element of policy success was NASA’s use of fixed-price contracts, in which the value of the contract is predetermined and the companies themselves are liable for extra costs. So it has been Boeing, not NASA, shouldering the nearly $1 billion in extra costs stemming from Starliner’s delays. 

This was a smart move away from NASA’s traditional use of cost-plus contracts, in which a vendor is reimbursed for additional costs as well as a fee, so that NASA (and thus the taxpayer) is on the hook for cost overruns. Cost-plus contracts have rightly been called a “plague” by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and “the devil” by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. 

These lessons were not all internalized immediately. NASA recently sought bids for a Human Landing System (HLS) to bring astronauts to the lunar surface for its Artemis Program. Last year, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion, fixed-price contract to develop its Starship HLS, but said it did not have the funding to award a second contract, which it preferred to do. Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, another entrant, protested the decision and sued NASA, but lost in both cases.

But there was some pushback in Washington. NASA’s Nelson added the second lander to his public wish list, and an earlier version of the 2022 appropriations bill required NASA to select one. By March 2022, NASA announced it would choose a second lander, eventually awarding Blue Origin a contract last month.

Finally, a byproduct of Commercial Crew’s competitive environment is that even some proposals not selected by NASA have still moved forward. Both Blue Origin and Sierra Space won awards in earlier phases. Blue Origin has rockets and crewed spacecraft in operation or under development; Sierra Space continued work on its spaceplane Dream Chaser for cargo, but after several years and a $1.4 billion funding round, the crewed version was resurrected.

Delays are always disappointing, but shouldn’t distract from the bigger successes of the Commercial Crew model. Using multiple private-sector contractors, plus fixed-price contracts, is a recipe for success and resilience that avoids overreliance on one provider while protecting taxpayers. As NASA spends billions on spaceflight beyond Earth in the coming years, this model should continue to be replicated as we explore and expand into the cosmos. 

Alex Dubin is an Endless Frontier Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation focusing on space policy.