A Boeing machinist and union member leads cheers during the “stop work meeting” and strike sanction at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, July 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Boeing and its largest union said on Sunday (September 8, 2024) they reached agreement on a new contract that, if ratified, will avoid a strike that threatened to shut down aircraft production by the end of the coming week.

Boeing said 33,000 workers represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers would get pay raises of 25% over the four-year contract, with average wages rising 33% due to seniority step increases. That is less than the 40% the union had demanded during negotiations.

But the company agreed with a key union demand to build its next plane in Washington state, presumably by union members.

Workers also would get $3,000 lump sum payments and a lower share of health care costs, Boeing said. The company would make new 401(k) contributions of up to $4,160 per employee, but the union would not achieve its demand to restore a defined-benefit pension plan that was eliminated in 2014.

“Negotiations are a give and take, and although there was no way to achieve success on every single item, we can honestly say that this proposal is the best contract we’ve negotiated in our history,” Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751, the machinists’ union outpost at Boeing, said in a statement posted on the union website.

The union’s bargaining committee is recommending that members ratify the contract, Holden said.

The president of Boeing’s commercial airplanes division, Stephanie Pope, said on Sunday in a video for employees that the proposed contract includes the company’s largest-ever general wage increase. She said the promise to build Boeing’s next new airliner in the Puget Sound area means job security for generations to come.

The proposed contract is contingent on union members ratifying before midnight Thursday Pacific time, after which the union was threatening to strike.

The union has scheduled a two-part election for Thursday, with workers voting whether to accept the contract, and whether to authorize a strike if they reject the offer. Voting will occur at about a half-dozen locations in Washington state and one in California.

A strike would have added to the headwinds facing Boeing, which is hurtling toward a sixth straight money-losing year and just hired a new CEO to turn things around.

The new chief executive, Kelly Ortberg, will try to reverse $27 billion in losses since the start of 2019. His assignment includes fixing problems in Boeing’s aircraft-manufacturing process, gaining regulatory approval for the long-delayed 777X jumbo jet, limiting damage from over-budget government contracts, paying down $45 billion in net debt, and absorbing Spirit AeroSystems, the money-losing key supplier that Boeing just bought for $4.7 billion.

Mr. Ortberg has sounded conciliatory toward the machinists’ union.

“He understands that they are basically contentious relationships with the union, and he wants to make those relationships better,” TD Cowen aerospace analyst Cai von Rumohr said.

A walkout at Boeing would not affect consumers, but it would shut down Boeing’s airplane production cut off needed cash. Von Rumohr said aircraft makers typically get about 60% of the purchase price on delivery, “so not delivering planes has a massive impact on your cash in-flow, and your costs probably continue on.”

An eight-week strike in 2008, the longest at Boeing since a 10-week walkout in 1995, cost the company about $100 million a day in deferred revenue.

Before the tentative agreement was announced, Jefferies aerospace analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu estimated that a strike would cost the company about $3 billion based on the 2008 strike plus inflation and current airplane-production rates.

Boeing is in far worse financial shape than it was in 2008. The company has lost $27 billion since the start of 2019, around the time that its best-selling plane, the 737 Max, was grounded worldwide after the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Revenue is down, debt is up.

Boeing’s greatest strength is that is remains one of the world’s two leading manufacturers of airline jets, forming a duopoly with Europe’s Airbus. Boeing has a huge backlog of orders, which it values at more than $500 billion.

In this photo provided by NASA, astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams inspect safety hardware aboard the International Space Station on August 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

NASA decided on Saturday (August 24, 2024) it’s too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule, and they’ll have to wait until next year for a ride home with SpaceX. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months.

The seasoned pilots have been stuck at the International Space Station since the beginning of June. A cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the new capsule marred their trip to the space station, and they ended up in a holding pattern as engineers conducted tests and debated what to do about the trip back.

After almost three months, the decision finally came down from NASA’s highest ranks on Saturday (August 24, 2024). Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will come back in a SpaceX spacecraft in February. Their empty Starliner capsule will undock in early September and attempt to return on autopilot.

As Starliner’s test pilots, the pair should have overseen this critical last leg of the journey, with touchdown in the U.S. desert.

“A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,” said NASA Administration Bill Nelson. “And so the decision… is a commitment to safety.”

“This has not been an easy decision, but it is absolutely the right one,” added NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free.

It was a blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its airplane side. Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.

Boeing did not participate in Saturday’s news conference by NASA but released a statement: “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”

Retired Navy captains with previous long-duration spaceflight experience, Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, anticipated surprises when they accepted the shakedown cruise of a new spacecraft, although not quite to this extent.

Before their June 5 launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, they said their families bought into the uncertainty and stress of their professional careers decades ago. During their lone orbital news conference last month, they said they had trust in the thruster testing being conducted. They had no complaints, they added, and enjoyed pitching in with space station work.

Wilmore’s wife, Deanna, was equally stoic in an interview earlier this month with WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, their home state. She was already bracing for a delay until next February: “You just sort of have to roll with it.”

There were few options.

The SpaceX capsule currently parked at the space station is reserved for the four residents who have been there since March. They will return in late September, their stay extended a month by the Starliner dilemma. NASA said it would be unsafe to squeeze two more into the capsule, except in an emergency.

The docked Russian Soyuz capsule is even tighter, capable of flying only three — two of them Russians wrapping up a yearlong stint.

So Wilmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX’s next taxi flight. It’s due to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four for a routine six-month stay. NASA yanked two to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight in late February.

NASA said no serious consideration was given to asking SpaceX for a quick stand-alone rescue. Last year, the Russian Space Agency had to rush up a replacement Soyuz capsule for three men whose original craft was damaged by space junk. The switch pushed their mission beyond a year, a U.S. space endurance record still held by Frank Rubio.

Starliner’s woes began long before its latest flight.

Bad software fouled the first test flight without a crew in 2019, prompting a do-over in 2022. Then parachute and other issues cropped up, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propellant system that nixed a launch attempt in May. The leak eventually was deemed to be isolated and small enough to pose no concern. But more leaks sprouted following liftoff, and five thrusters also failed.

All but one of those small thrusters restarted in flight. But engineers remain perplexed as to why some thruster seals appear to swell, obstructing the propellant lines, then revert to their normal size.

These 28 thrusters are vital. Besides needed for space station rendezvous, they keep the capsule pointed in the right direction at flight’s end as bigger engines steer the craft out of orbit. Coming in crooked could result in catastrophe.

With the Columbia disaster still fresh in many minds — the shuttle broke apart during reentry in 2003, killing all seven aboard — NASA embraced open debate over Starliner’s return capability. Dissenting views were stifled during Columbia’s doomed flight, just as they were during Challenger’s in 1986.

Despite Saturday’s decision, NASA isn’t giving up on Boeing.

NASA went into its commercial crew program a decade ago wanting two competing U.S. companies ferrying astronauts in the post-shuttle era. Boeing won the bigger contract: more than $4 billion, compared with SpaceX’s $2.6 billion.

With station supply runs already under its belt, SpaceX aced its first of now nine astronaut flights in 2020, while Boeing got bogged down in design flaws that set the company back more than $1 billion. NASA officials still hold out hope that Starliner’s problems can be corrected in time for another crew flight in another year or so.

Story so far: Veteran American astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry (Butch) Wilmore, are still docked with the International Space Station (ISS) since June 6 after facing delays, space debris threats, helium leaks and technical glitches on the Starliner spacecraft on which they travelled.

The U.S Space Agency — National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — held a ‘space-to-earth’ news conference with the two astronauts on July 10 to receive an update on their mission’s progress. Both astronauts said they ‘felt confident’ that they could return to Earth on Starliner itself.

Also read | How Boeing can bring NASA’s Sunita Williams, Barry Wilmore back to Earth

“I have a real good feeling in my heart that this spacecraft will bring us home, no problem,” said Ms. Williams, while Mr. Wilmore said, “That mantra you’ve heard, failure is not an option.” He added that both crew members were staying on the ISS to test the spacecraft

NASA along with the space capsule’s manufacturer Boeing is evaluating Starliner’s propulsion system and the five small helium leaks in the service module. The team is conducting ground tests on identical thrusters at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range while another investigation is underway at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to determine why the propulsion system’s seal failed, leading to helium leaks.

The continued delay in Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore’s safe return, which was initially scheduled to begin on June 18, has piqued concerns across the world, including India. Apart from Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore, NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matt Dominick, Tracy C. Dyson, Jeanette Epps and Russian Cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko are aboard the ISS.

Here’s a look at the attempted launches, what went wrong, and current efforts for the crew’s safe return

Starliner’s attempted launches and success

Sunita Williams, 58, is the pilot of NASA’s Crew Flight Test mission aboard Boeing’s Starliner space capsule. The mission is a joint venture between NASA and American private space players to open up commercial travel to low-Earth orbits and the ISS to more people for scientific and commercial purposes.

United Launch Alliance, a joint venture by Boeing and Lockheed Martin manufactured the Atlas V rocket which transported the astronauts via Boeing’s space capsule Starliner to the ISS. With this, NASA will have a second space capsule option (apart from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon), which has a crew module which can house up to seven astronauts and a non-reusable service module which houses the equipment and systems (air, temperature controls, water supply etc) needed for a stay in space.

The first crewed test flight of Starliner with the above-mentioned astronauts was scheduled for May 6 for a week-long stay at the ISS. However, the flight was scrapped less than two hours before the launch after an issue was detected in an oxygen relief valve of the rocket’s second stage. All launch activities were suspended and the flight was postponed to May 17.

A helium leak was detected in a thruster in Starliner’s service module, further postponing the launch to June 1. On that day, the ground launch sequencer, the computer which launches the rocket, triggered an automatic hold stopping the countdown clock three minutes fifty seconds before the launch.

On June 5, Starliner was finally launched successfully from NASA’s Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and the two astronauts docked with the forward-facing port of the ISS. During their week long stay, the astronauts were tasked with verifying if Starliner was performing as intended by conducting tests on the various control systems and manoeuvring the thrusters. Prior to take-off, a small helium leak was noticed in the space capsule’s propulsion system but not deemed serious.

What went wrong?

En-route to the ISS, four more small helium leaks sprung up. Both NASA and Boeing officials reviewed flight data to find out the cause of the leaks. On June 6, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich admitted that similar thruster issues were revealed during the spacecraft’s uncrewed test flight in 2022, adding, “thought we had fixed that problem,” at a press conference.

The undocking and return journey of Starliner, which was scheduled for June 18, was postponed to June 22, then June 25 and later to July 2.

Mr. Stich opined that thruster issues may have been caused overheating when fuel was burned during the space capsule’s rendezvous with the ISS. According to CNN, the Starliner’s service module has 28 reaction control thrusters, of which five have failed during flight. Four were brought back online eventually.

The Starliner, which had its first uncrewed Orbital test flight in 2019, faced a software glitch, leaving the space capsule in the wrong orbit before it returned to ground without docking with the ISS. In 2022, the space capsule successfully conducted its first uncrewed test flight when it docked with the ISS and then undocked four days later to return to Earth. This flight too faced issues with the thrusters.

What is causing the delay?

Apart from technical issues, the crew also faced a debris collision threat on June 28. The US Space Command alerted the six astronauts onboard the ISS to execute ‘safe haven’ procedures i.e. crew members board the spacecraft they arrived in, in case an emergency departure is needed. This was necessitated after a defunct Russian satellite (RESURS-P1) broke into more than 100 pieces of debris in an orbit near the ISS. Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore were forced to board the Starliner to take shelter for an hour before they resumed their activities on the ISS.

On July 2, NASA said that the spacecraft was in good shape to remain docked to the ISS for over 45 days (its upper limit), giving the ground teams of NASA and Boeing time to conduct simulations and tests on the thrusters. Analysis is also underway to determine why several helium leaks have arisen in the capsule, said NASA. Currently, NASA has not set any end date to the mission, making the extension indefinite.

How will the crew return?

In the July 10 press conference, NASA has said, that if absolutely necessary, Starliner would be capable of returning to Earth – acting as an escape pod. Moreover, NASA also has the option of ferrying Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams to Earth aboard Crew Dragon. The SpaceX spaceship transported four astronauts to the ISS in March and is capable of fitting more people in case of an emergency. However, such an option has would be a last resort in case Starliner is deemed non-functional.

But NASA has reiterated its confidence in the Starliner to return the duo, dropping the option of using the Crew Dragon.

US aviation regulators said Monday that more than 2,600 Boeing 737 airplanes would need to be inspected, due to concerns that passenger oxygen masks could fail in emergencies.

Operators are to inspect the oxygen generators and “perform corrective actions, if necessary, within 120 to 150 days,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge to resolve a U.S. Justice Department investigation linked to two 737 MAX fatal crashes, a government official said on July 7.
| Photo Credit: Reuter

Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge to resolve a U.S. Justice Department investigation linked to two 737 MAX fatal crashes, a government official said on July 7.

The plea, which requires a federal judge’s approval, would brand the planemaker a convicted felon. Boeing will also pay a criminal fine of $243.6 million, a Justice Department official said.

The charge relates to two 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia over a five-month period in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people and prompted the families of the victims to demand that Boeing face prosecution.

A guilty plea potentially threatens the company’s ability to secure lucrative government contracts with the likes of the U.S. Defense Department and NASA, although it could seek waivers. Boeing became exposed to criminal prosecution after the Justice Department in May found the company violated a 2021 settlement involving the fatal crashes.

Still, the plea spares Boeing a contentious trial that could have exposed many of the company’s decisions leading up to the fatal MAX plane crashes to even greater public scrutiny. It would also make it easier for the company, which will have a new CEO later this year, to try to move forward as it seeks approval for its planned acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems.

Boeing declined to comment.

Boeing has also agreed to invest at least $455 million over the next three years to strengthen its safety and compliance programs, the official said. DOJ will appoint a third-party monitor to oversee the firm’s compliance. The monitor will have to publicly file with the court annual reports on the company’s progress.

The Justice Department on June 30 offered a plea agreement to Boeing and gave the company until the end of the week to take the deal or face a trial on a charge of conspiring to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration in connection with a key software feature tied to the fatal crashes.

After being briefed last week on the DOJ’s offer, a lawyer for some of the families criticized it as a “sweetheart deal”. They have vowed to oppose the deal in court.

The Justice Department’s push to charge Boeing has deepened an ongoing crisis engulfing Boeing since a separate January in-flight blowout exposed continuing safety and quality issues at the planemaker.

A panel blew off a new Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet during a Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines flight, just two days before the 2021 deferred prosecution agreement that had shielded the company from prosecution over the previous fatal crashes expired. The agreement only covers Boeing’s conduct before the fatal crashes and does not shield the planemaker from any other potential investigations or charges related to the January incident or other conduct.

Boeing is pleading guilty to making knowingly false representations to the Federal Aviation Administration about having expanded a key software feature used on the MAX to operate at low speeds. The new software saved Boeing money by requiring less intensive training for pilots.

The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) is a software feature designed to automatically push the airplane’s nose down in certain conditions. It was tied to the two crashes that led to the FAA’s grounding the plane for 20 months, an action that cost Boeing $20 billion, and the government lifted in November 2020.

As part of the deal, Boeing’s board of directors will meet with relatives of those killed in the MAX crashes, the official said.

The agreement does not shield any executives, the DOJ official said, though charges against individuals are seen as unlikely due to the statute of limitations.

The agreed penalty will be Boeing’s second fine of $243.6 million related to the fatal crashes — bringing the full fine to the maximum allowed. The company paid the fine previously as part of 2021’s $2.5 billion settlement. The $243.6 million fine represented the amount Boeing saved by not implementing full-flight simulator training.

Families of the victims of those crashes slammed the previous agreement and earlier this year pressed the Justice Department to seek as much as $25 billion from Boeing.

This year, the DOJ has held several meetings to hear from the victims’ families as they investigated Boeing’s breach of the 2021 deal.

Washington:

US aircraft manufacturer Boeing said Monday it had reached a “definitive deal” to buy its subcontractor Spirit, which has faced scrutiny over production quality control in recent months.

“The merger is an all-stock transaction at an equity value of approximately $4.7 billion, or $37.25 per share,” the company said in a statement.

Boeing disclosed in March that it was in talks to potentially reacquire Spirit, which it spun off in 2005 to lower costs.

“We believe this deal is in the best interest of the flying public, our airline customers, the employees of Spirit and Boeing, our shareholders and the country more broadly,” said Boeing president and CEO Dave Calhoun.

He said by reintegrating Spirit, “we can fully align our commercial production systems”, including safety and quality management systems, and “our workforce to the same priorities, incentives and outcomes — centered on safety and quality”.

Spirit AeroSystems builds fuselages and other significant parts for both Airbus and Boeing.

Boeing is by far Spirit’s biggest customer, with around 70 per cent of its revenue coming from the American plane maker in 2023.

The two companies have faced intense scrutiny since a near-catastrophic incident in January when a fuselage panel blew off a 737 MAX mid-flight.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

The US Justice Department is offering Boeing a plea deal that will allow it to avoid a trial related to two deadly 737 MAX crashes, a lawyer for the victims’ families said Sunday, expressing outrage.

Details of the deal, which requires Boeing to pay a fine and submit to an outside supervisor, were given to the families in a two-hour presentation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday, said Paul Cassell, a University of Utah law professor who represents the families.

He said the families “will strenuously object” to the agreement if Boeing ultimately accepts and it is presented to a judge.

Contacted by AFP, Boeing declined to comment.

The New York Times reported over a week ago that prosecutors were eying such an alternative settlement, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, or DPA, but the DOJ said it had not yet made a decision.

In May, the DOJ concluded that Boeing could be prosecuted for violating a previous DPA reached following the two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, which claimed 346 lives.

Under that three-year deal, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle fraud charges related to the certification of the 737 MAX.

But the aviation giant came under renewed scrutiny early this year after a 737 MAX operated by Alaska Airlines was forced to make an emergency landing after a fuselage panel blew out mid-flight.

The January 5 incident brought Boeing’s manufacturing processes back into the spotlight, prompting regulator scrutiny and congressional investigations.

Meanwhile, the victims’ families have repeatedly urged federal prosecutors to bring Boeing to court versus reaching another settlement.

But prosecutors also faced pressure not to further damage Boeing, a company seen as critical to the US aviation industry as well as national security.

In his presentation on Sunday, the lead US prosecutor “admitted there is ‘a strong interest’ by the families to go to trial, but he repeatedly said that the DOJ couldn’t prove charges by a reasonable doubt,” Cassell said.

“Families argued over and over for a trial and to allow a jury to make that decision,” he said.

Boeing contested the DOJ’s conclusions in mid-June but has recognized the gravity of the safety crisis.

CEO Dave Calhoun, who has agreed to step down later in the year, told a recent congressional hearing that the company is “taking action and making progress.”

Ultimately, it will be up to the federal judge in Texas who is overseeing the case to decide if the new DPA goes through.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Boeing Starliner’s return to Earth from the International Space Station with its first crew of astronauts has been postponed, NASA said on Friday.

NASA did not provide a new date, raising questions about when the mission’s two astronauts will return as more testing and technical issues have created more delays.

The return to earth was previously scheduled for June 26.

The crew of U.S. astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, lifted off June 5 as a final demonstration to obtain routine flight certification from NASA.

The crewed test of the spacecraft, which has been test-flown to space twice since 2019 without humans aboard, has encountered five failures of its 28 maneuvering thrusters, five leaks of helium that are meant to pressurize those thrusters, and a slow-moving propellant valve that signaled unfixed issues from the past.

The issues and the additional tests NASA and Boeing have had to do call into question when exactly Starliner will be able to fly its crew home, and add to a list of broader problems Boeing faces with its Starliner program. The company has spent $1.5 billion in cost overruns on top of its $4.5 billion NASA development contract.

NASA wants Starliner to become the second US spacecraft capable of ferrying its astronauts to and from the ISS alongside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which has been the agency’s primary ride since 2020. Boeing’s Starliner program has struggled with software glitches, design problems, and subcontractor disputes for years.

When Starliner arrived in the space station’s vicinity to dock on June 6, the five thruster failures prohibited the spacecraft from making a close approach until Boeing could implement a fix. The company rewrote software and tweaked some procedures to revive four of them and proceed with docking.

Starliner’s undocking and return to Earth represent the spacecraft’s most complicated phases of its test mission. NASA officials have said they want to better understand the cause of the thruster failures, valve issue, and helium leaks before Starliner embarks on its roughly six-hour return journey.

While just one thruster remains dead in Starliner’s current flight, Boeing encountered four thruster problems during the capsule’s uncrewed return from space in 2022.

According to flight rules established jointly by Boeing and NASA, Starliner’s maneuvering thrusters must, at a minimum, allow for “6-degrees of freedom of control,” and each has one backup thruster, a NASA spokesperson told Reuters.

That could mean at least 12 of the 28 thrusters – most of which are backups – are required for a safe flight, or potentially fewer, as long as the remaining thrusters have one backup and can work together in a way that doesn’t restrict Starliner’s freedom of movement in space.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Families of Boeing 737 MAX crash victims on Wednesday asked US authorities to impose a fine of up to $24.8 billion on the aviation giant and proceed with criminal prosecution.

The move comes a day after Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun acknowledged the “gravity” of the company’s safety problems and assured a US congressional panel that it was making progress on the issue.

Sitting behind him in the audience were relatives of victims of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019, who held up victims’ photos.

“Because Boeing’s crime is the deadliest corporate crime in US history, a maximum fine of more than $24 billion is legally justified and clearly appropriate,” Paul Cassell, a lawyer for the families, wrote in a letter to the US Department of Justice.

The 32-page document explains the calculations behind the amount sought, saying Boeing “should be fined the maximum — $24,780,000,000 — with perhaps $14,000,000,000 to $22,000,0000,000 of the fine suspended on the condition that Boeing devote those suspended funds to an independent corporate monitor and related improvements in compliance and safety programs as identified below.”

It added: “And Boeing’s Board of Directors should be ordered to meet with the families.”

The families also believe the government should promptly “launch criminal prosecutions of the responsible corporate officials at Boeing at the time of the two crashes.”

The case relates to crashes in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia that together claimed 346 lives and comes as Boeing faces intensifying scrutiny following recent manufacturing and safety problems.

The aviation giant has again been in the public spotlight since a January 5 incident in which a 737 MAX operated by Alaska Airlines was forced to make an emergency landing after a fuselage panel blew out mid-flight.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying two astronauts aboard Boeing’s Starliner-1 Crew Flight Test (CFT), is launched on a mission to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. on June 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Boeing launched astronauts for the first time on June 5, belatedly joining SpaceX as a second taxi service for NASA.

A pair of NASA test pilots blasted off aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule for the International Space Station, the first to fly the new spacecraft.

The trip by Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams was expected to take 25 hours, with an arrival Thursday. They will spend just over a week at the orbiting lab before climbing back into Starliner for a remote desert touchdown in the western U.S. on June 14.

“Let’s get going!” Wilmore called out a few minutes before liftoff.

Half an hour later, he and Williams were safely in orbit and giving chase to the space station. Back at Cape Canaveral, the relieved launch controllers stood and applauded. After all the trouble leading up to Wednesday’s launch, including two scrapped countdowns, everything went smoothly before and during liftoff, prompting congratulations from SpaceX’s Elon Musk and others.

“Today it all lined up,” said Boeing program manager Mark Nappi.

Years late because of spacecraft flaws, Starliner’s crew debut comes as the company struggles with unrelated safety issues on its airplane side.

Wilmore and Williams — retired Navy captains and former space station residents — stressed repeatedly before the launch that they had full confidence in Boeing’s ability to get it right with this test flight. Crippled by bad software, Starliner’s initial test flight in 2019 without a crew had to be repeated before NASA would let its astronauts strap in. The 2022 do-over went much better, but parachute problems later cropped up and flammable tape had to be removed from the capsule.

Wednesday’s launch was the third attempt with astronauts since early May, coming after a pair of rocket-related problems, most recently last weekend. A small helium leak in the spacecraft’s propulsion system also caused delays, but remained extremely low and manageable.

“It’s just a tough endeavor to get to flight and huge kudos to the entire team for getting there,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager.

Boeing was hired alongside Elon Musk’s SpaceX a decade ago to ferry NASA’s astronauts to and from the space station. The space agency wanted two competing U.S. companies for the job in the wake of the space shuttles’ retirement, paying $4.2 billion to Boeing and just over half that to SpaceX, which refashioned the capsule it was using to deliver station supplies.

SpaceX launched astronauts into orbit in 2020, becoming the first private business to achieve what only three countries — Russia, the U.S. and China — had mastered. It has taken nine crews to the space station for NASA and three private groups for a Houston company that charters flights.

The liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the 100th of an Atlas V for rocket maker United Launch Alliance. It was the first ride for astronauts on an Atlas rocket since John Glenn’s Mercury era more than 60 years ago; the rocket usually launches satellites and other spacecraft.

Despite the Atlas V’s perfect record, the human presence cranked up the tension for the scores of NASA and Boeing employees gathered at Cape Canaveral and Mission Control in Houston.

Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Dragon are designed to be fully autonomous and reusable. Wilmore and Williams occasionally will take manual control of Starliner on their way to the space station, to check out its systems. The only snag early in the flight involved the capsule’s cooling system. More water was used than expected before the radiators took over in orbit. The tank will be refilled before the ride home.

If the mission goes well, NASA will alternate between SpaceX and Boeing for taxi flights, beginning next year. The backup pilot for this test flight, Mike Fincke, will strap in for Starliner’s next trip.

“This is exciting. We built up to this moment for years and years, and it finally happened,” Fincke said from neighboring Kennedy Space Center. “I feel like the whole planet was cheering for them.”