Boeing Objects to NASA Inspector General's Commercial Crew Report

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The company "strongly disagrees" with some of the findings.

Artist’s illustrations of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner (left) and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules in orbit.
Artist’s illustrations of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner (left) and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules in orbit. (Image credit: Boeing/SpaceX)

Boeing is fighting back against a recent report on NASA's Commercial Crew Program from the agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG).

NASA has been encouraging the development of private astronaut taxis for nearly a decade via Commercial Crew, aiming to end the United States' dependence on Russian Soyuz vehicles for crewed missions to and from the International Space Station (ISS). That dependence has been total since NASA grounded its space shuttle fleet in July 2011.

Boeing and SpaceX emerged as the big Commercial Crew winners in September 2014, scoring contracts currently worth $4.3 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively, to get vehicles up and running and to fly six missions apiece to and from the ISS. Both companies are developing capsules; Boeing's is called the CST-100 Starliner, and SpaceX's is Crew Dragon.

Related: Crew Dragon & Starliner: A Look at the Upcoming Astronaut Taxis

Back in 2014, NASA officials said they hoped that at least one of the capsules would be operational by 2017. That didn't happen, of course. The 53-page OIG report, which was released last week, looked into schedule delays and other issues, serving as a broad audit of the Commercial Crew Program.

The report estimated that NASA will end up paying about $90 million per seat to fly astronauts to and from the ISS aboard Starliner, compared to just $55 million per seat on Crew Dragon. (For reference, a seat on the three-person Soyuz currently costs NASA about $85 million.)

Boeing said that $90 million figure is too high, and the company took issue with some of the report's other findings as well.

"We strongly disagree with the report's conclusions about CST-100 Starliner pricing and readiness, and we owe it to the space community and the American public to share the facts the inspector general missed," Jim Chilton, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Launch, said in a statement. 

"Each member of the Boeing team has a personal stake in the safety, quality and integrity of what we offer our customers, and since Day 1, the Starliner team has approached this program with a commitment to design, develop and launch a vehicle that we and NASA can be proud of," he added.

Chilton's words are part of a nearly 1,100-word statement that Boeing released yesterday (Nov. 18). In the statement, company representatives argued that Starliner's per-seat price is actually lower than the OIG's estimate, because NASA will fly lots of cargo aboard the capsule as well. (Both Starliner and Crew Dragon can accommodate seven astronauts but are expected to fly just four people on each contracted Commercial Crew mission.)

The Boeing statement also defended the company's larger Commercial Crew contract. The higher award makes sense, Boeing wrote, given that Starliner was developed "from scratch" whereas SpaceX leveraged tech from the company's robotic Dragon cargo capsule, which has been flying ISS resupply missions since 2012 under a different NASA contract.

These arguments echo points that Boeing spokespeople made to Space.com and other outlets late last week, when the first round of stories about the OIG report went up. But Chilton's strong words are new, as is the posting of a detailed response on the company's website.

Both Starliner and Crew Dragon are in the home stretch of development. SpaceX's capsule has already flown to the ISS once, on the weeklong, uncrewed Demo-1 mission this past March. The company is currently gearing up for a crucial "in-flight abort" (IFA) test, which will prove out Crew Dragon's ability to get astronauts away from danger in the event of a launch emergency. If everything goes well with the IFA, SpaceX will be clear to launch a crewed demonstration flight to the orbiting lab early next year, with contracted missions starting sometime thereafter.

Boeing, meanwhile, plans to launch its uncrewed ISS demonstration flight on Dec. 17. If that mission goes according to plan, "we are well positioned to fly our first crew in early 2020," company representatives said in yesterday's statement.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. 

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Vernony
    As I understand it Boeing are also working with the British who are developing Skylon. This aircraft takes off from a normal runway and converts to rocket power at the edge of space , where it is expected to achieve Mach 25. Whereas, in atmosphere, as a ram jet, it will travel at up to 4500 miles per hour and to do this they have to reduce the friction temperature of the air at the intakes from up to 3000c down to minus about 150c in one twentieth of a second, and they have proved that they could do that when they blasted ex fighter jet engines straight into the air intake of the Skylon engine and it successfully cooled it down to the working temperature. In atmosphere whilst under jet power and it will extract oxygen from air and freeze it to mix with preloaded liquid hydrogen,t when it switches to the rocket part of its journey. Initially the payload into space maybe a weak point at about 10 tons, but of course you could always build a bigger version of the aircraft with more lifting power. It seems to offer a viable alternative to rockets, especially as it can land and take off a. many times as they need it to in the same day. Currently the non-stop journey to Eastern Australia from the UK is 30 hours. The Skylon is scheduled to do it in about 4 and a half hours, and that would be just using its jet engines. Whatever, it sounds a lot cheaper than the current rocket alternative . Search words 'reaction engines'
    Reply
  • Vernony
    As I understand it Boeing are also working with the British who are developing Skylon. This aircraft takes off from a normal runway and converts to rocket power at the edge of space , where it is expected to achieve Mach 25. Whereas, in atmosphere, as a ram jet, it will travel at up to 4500 miles per hour and to do this they have to reduce the friction temperature of the air at the intakes from up to 3000c down to minus about 150c in one twentieth of a second, and they have proved that they could do that when they blasted ex fighter jet engines straight into the air intake of the Skylon engine and it successfully cooled it down to the working temperature. In atmosphere whilst under jet power and it will extract oxygen from air and freeze it to mix with preloaded liquid hydrogen,t when it switches to the rocket part of its journey. Initially the payload into space maybe a weak point at about 10 tons, but of course you could always build a bigger version of the aircraft with more lifting power. It seems to offer a viable alternative to rockets, especially as it can land and take off a. many times as they need it to in the same day. Currently the non-stop journey to Eastern Australia from the UK is 30 hours. The Skylon is scheduled to do it in about 4 and a half hours, and that would be just using its jet engines. Whatever, it sounds a lot cheaper than the current rocket alternative . Search words 'reaction engines'
    Reply
  • cognut
    Boeing did not or could not refute the I.G. claim with any countervailing figures. Boeing is accustomed to uncritical government rubber stamping of whatever numbers Boeing supplies
    Reply