For Boeing, this Monday night local time will be a day in the company's history - the company's spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, developed for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will make its first astronaut trip to space.
For Boeing, which has been plagued by frequent accidents in its aircraft manufacturing business and reported bizarre deaths of whistleblowers, helping the American aerospace industry take a small step forward will also be an excellent opportunity to improve the company's image.
Boeing was heavily crushed by SpaceX, and the pressure was quite high
According to NASA's mission plan, Interstellar Airways will take off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida at 10:34 pm Eastern Time on Monday (10:34 am Beijing Time on Tuesday) aboard the Joint Launch Alliance's (ULA, a joint venture subsidiary of Boeing and Lockheed Martin) Cosmos 5 carrier rocket. The rocket will transport two nearly 60 year old veteran astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to the International Space Station and return to Earth a week later.
The entire process is not complicated. After launch, the spacecraft will take about a day to connect to the International Space Station, during which astronauts will conduct experiments on manually manipulating the spacecraft. After staying at the International Space Station for a week, the spacecraft will carry two people back to Earth, and NASA and Boeing can also learn whether the spacecraft's thermal shield and parachute can function properly.
According to American space history, both the Interstellar Route and SpaceX Dragon spacecraft belong to the fifth generation of manned spacecraft, while the previously retired space shuttle in 2011 was the fourth generation of manned spacecraft. Among the first four generations of spacecraft, the first and second generations were manufactured by McDonald Aircraft Company (later acquired by Boeing), while the third and fourth generations were led by Lockheed Martin.
During the ten-year hiatus, the United States mainly relied on purchasing tickets for the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to send American astronauts to the International Space Station. Due to NASA's delay in obtaining spacecraft capable of carrying out manned space missions, the price of "tickets" has also skyrocketed, with the price of one seat rising from the initial $20 million to the latest $90 million.
The last American astronaut to board a Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station was Tracy Dyson. She took off in March of this year and successfully entered the station. The same spacecraft also landed in Kazakhstan with another American astronaut, Loral OHara, in April of this year.
Faced with this situation of being choked by Russia, NASA is not without action. In 2014, SpaceX and Boeing both received a manned spacecraft contract from NASA, with SpaceX receiving $2.6 billion and Boeing receiving $4.2 billion.
SpaceX, which received less money, was the first to achieve results. Musk's Dragon spacecraft completed the milestone of carrying American astronauts into the International Space Station as early as 2020, and subsequently carried out 13 orbital manned and cargo missions for NASA and private clients. NASA also invested $1.4 billion in 2022 to renew six launch missions.
Just as Musk's Dragon spacecraft began to generate a steady stream of revenue, Boeing was deeply embroiled in a series of spacecraft malfunctions. After years of delay, the interstellar route has caused Boeing a loss of $1.4 billion.
NASA Warning: Be prepared for unexpected situations
Due to the various troubles in Boeing's aircraft manufacturing business, coupled with various malfunctions in spacecraft development, the public's greatest focus on Boeing spacecraft is also on safety.
In December 2019, Boeing launched its first interstellar route into Earth orbit, but soon engineers realized that there was a problem with the spacecraft - the onboard computer had a time difference of 11 hours, causing the spacecraft to start executing instructions at different stages; Subsequently, it was also discovered that the service module of the spacecraft violently collided with the crew module during the separation process, which NASA officials referred to as "potentially causing the death of astronauts.".
When the experiment was launched again a year and a half later, it was found that several valves of the spacecraft's service module had been corroded after being installed on the rocket. As it could not be repaired on site, the launch had to be cancelled.
By May 2022, Boeing had finally completed its unmanned test flight, but later announced that the spacecraft's parachute system may be more fragile than expected. It was also discovered that the tape used in the spacecraft was flammable, causing a delay in the manned flight mission to this day.
At last week's press briefing, NASA Deputy Director Fry emphasized his confidence in Boeing and also reminded the public that "this is a new spacecraft," so unexpected issues may arise during the test flight mission.
Steve Stich, the head of NASA's commercial manned program, also introduced last month that NASA has the same risk threshold for Boeing and SpaceX manned programs - the risk of astronaut death caused by the mission must be less than 1 in 270. Steve revealed that the probability of a Boeing interstellar spacecraft crash is 1 in 295.