Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which has faced numerous delays and setbacks over the years, is finally set to attempt its first piloted launch on Monday night. NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Willmore and Sunita “Sunni” Williams will pilot the mission, called Crew Flight Test (CFT).
In contrast to its rival, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, Starliner has encountered a series of technical challenges, despite receiving almost double the funding. In 2019, the Boeing spacecraft launched its first uncrewed flight test, but it failed to reach the International Space Station (ISS).
Ahead of Starliner’s first crewed launch, SpaceX founder Elon Musk took to social media to criticize his rival company. “Although Boeing got $4.2 billion to develop an astronaut capsule and SpaceX only got $2.6 billion, SpaceX finished 4 years sooner. Note, the crew capsule design of Dragon 2 has almost nothing in common with Dragon 1. Too many non-technical managers at Boeing,” Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Musk’s tweet came in response to an article by Senior Space Editor at Ars Technica Eric Berger, which delved into the reasons behind Starliner’s seven-year delay. The article cited the company’s “structural inefficiency” and software issues among the factors contributing to the setbacks.
In 2014, NASA selected both Boeing and SpaceX to transport US astronauts to the ISS. While Boeing received a larger budget of $4.2 billion compared to SpaceX’s $2.6 billion, SpaceX beat Boeing to the launchpad in 2020. Nearly four years later, Boeing is now attempting to launch NASA pilots into space for the first time. In the meantime, SpaceX has successfully completed 13 piloted Crew Dragon flights.
