Boeing’s new problem is far from a crisis

Boeing’s first crewed launch of its Starliner spacecraft on Monday was called off at the last minute, in what appeared to be the final blow for the embattled company.

The launch was aborted due to a possible problem with the oxygen relief valve on the Atlas rocket, which is operated by the United Launch Alliance, and not because of a problem with the Starliner itself.

The aviation company has faced a PR nightmare after a series of safety issues with its planes this year. There were 29 incidents, accidents and occurrences involving Boeing aircraft worldwide between Jan. 1 and April 7, according to data available through the National Transportation Safety Board’s online case analysis and reporting tool.

Despite Boeing’s ongoing crisis, an aerospace expert said Newsweek that the canceled launch should not be combined with problems with their aircraft.

“If you look back in the history of launch vehicles, there’s also a long history of scrubbing launches for safety and other reasons. This is normal for this to happen,” said Kevin T. Crofton Division Chief Ella Atkins. of Aerospace Engineering at Virginia Tech.

“It’s not like this would be related to Boeing’s other problems, because this is a completely different team at Boeing. Boeing is a giant company, their commercial aircraft business is completely separate from their launch vehicles. Yes, they have the same CEO, but it’s a different group of top-down leaders driving these business models,” Atkins said.

A Boeing spokesperson pointed out Newsweek on NASA’s mission blog, which said the launch is now scheduled for “no sooner than 6:16 PM EDT, Friday, May 17.”

The launch of Boeing’s spacecraft, which has been in the works for years, has suffered multiple problems and delays, causing it to fall behind its competitor, Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

In 2014, Boeing secured a $4.2 billion contract for its Starliner spacecraft, while SpaceX received $2.6 billion under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

However, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft performed its first crewed launch in 2020, while Boeing’s first has yet to take place.

Musk criticized Boeing’s launch in the hours before it was scheduled to take place on Monday, pointing out in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that his company had conducted their first crewed launch years ago.

He added that he thought Boeing has “too many non-technical managers,” and also joked about Boeing’s whistleblowers, who have raised awareness about the company’s practices in recent months.

Atkins pointed out Newsweek that SpaceX, despite its successes, has also had its fair share of failures, and that it is unfair to hold Boeing to a different standard.

“Be careful not to wrongly assume that everyone at Boeing and everything they do is more suspect than what other companies and people do,” she said.

“Especially when people are involved, we have to make the mistake on the safety side first and foremost. And delays often happen because we make mistakes on that safety side.”

Other analysts have noted that the stakes are high for Boeing as the company looks to secure a victory after months of bad press.

“It’s very important to Boeing’s desire to be relevant to NASA, relevant to human spaceflight and to the confidence internally to turn around and execute a program that has had problems,” Ken Herbert, a Boeing executive, told me. analyst at RBC Capital Markets, to Science Outlet. Phys.org.

“This could be a big win for Boeing if they can pull this off successfully, especially in light of all the bad news they’re getting from other parts of the company.”

Last month, Boeing reported losses of $355 million in the first three months of the year, which was not as big a loss as analysts expected.

The company’s CEO, Dave Calhoun, announced last month that he will step down at the end of this year due to safety concerns.