One can imagine that Boeing was not even remotely expecting that his Starliner was visible under the current circumstancess. Recall that it all began when, after the end of the space shuttle program and the period of dependence on foreign companies and public entities, the American federal administration and NASA decided that it was time to regain the necessary autonomy to be able to carry out operations of this type without dependence on anything other than on national resources.

To restore this autonomy, The US space agency decided to look for the suppliers it needed in the private sector, which over the years has participated in various initiatives, competitions announced by the agency. Competitions where we have seen names like Boeing, Blue Origin and arguably the most popular and successful of all SpaceX. And it was thanks to the latter that the United States regained national autonomy for return flights to the International Space Station.

Now, although the four SpaceX-built Crew Dragons have already proven to be more than solvent, Locating all flight capacity with a single supplier is always a risky optionand that explains why the space agency also wanted the services of Starliner, Boeing’s star project that the company had been working on for decades and which wanted to become one of the company’s star programs, which would also serve to clean up a bit of the bad image after the looming Boeing crisis 737 MAX.

The Starliner docked at the International Space Station and flew over the Mediterranean Sea. Image: NASA.

From the beginning though Delays and some extra costs started to add upwhich put the project in a not very comfortable situation. However, those issues seemed finally resolved when it was confirmed last June that the Starliner would finally fly to the International Space Station. One can imagine that the directors of the company were relieved, although unfortunately for them the joy did not last long. And as we already told you, several problems during the outbound flight caused the ship to get stuck on the ISS.

After more than two months of data collection and analysis, in the end NASA and Boeing made the most sensible decisionand announced that the Starliner would return to Earth without a crew. A setback for Boeing, but it still has some room for maneuver if the return of the ship is done correctly and without incident. Or at least without incidents that threaten the safety of the ship,

The problem, the big problem, is what happens when the Starliner suffers an accident during the six hours it is supposed to make its return flight. And in that case, the confidence of the American public administration, including NASA, is likely to fall so far below the necessary threshold of trust that perhaps the Boeing program has no future other than its cancellation. And that, added to the image crisis I mentioned earlier, could end up being one of the worst moments in the storied company’s history.

More information and images: NASA