Boeing’s Rough Year Continues

Boeing is having a rough year.

They went from celebrating all-time highs as the highly anticipated 737 max garnered multiple substantial contracts, and their highly anticipated Starliner commercial rocket received a $4.2 billion deal from NASA, to literally falling from the sky.

It looks like this year is going to drag on a little bit longer for Boeing now that their Starliner rocket stalled in orbit.

Boeing’s highly anticipated, Starliner astronaut ship, stalled in orbit today during the uncrewed test flight.

The ship had a malfunction in its’ “Mission Elapsed Time (MET).”

A tweet from Jim Bridenstine stated that “Because #Starliner believed it was in an orbital insertion burn (or that the burn was complete), the dead bands were reduced, and the spacecraft burned more fuel than anticipated to maintain precise control.”

Because #Starliner believed it was in an orbital insertion burn (or that the burn was complete), the dead bands were reduced and the spacecraft burned more fuel than anticipated to maintain precise control. This precluded @Space_Station rendezvous.

— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) December 20, 2019

The rocket no longer had enough fuel to make the rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS).

Jim Bridenstine did say that the spacecraft will be able to make a soft landing, and they are confident that after studying the anomaly, it will be fixed.

This is just one in a string of recent setbacks for Boeing. Their 737 Max that was grounded since March after two deadly crashes are now losing their United airlines contract until June. 

This is coming on the back of Spirit AeroSystems Inc., saying that they would halt the production of the 737 Max’s fuselages (the body of the aircraft).

Boeing has stated that if they can not lift the ungrounding in January 2020 they will consider shutting down the 737 Max program.

We should be watching this closely because Boeing employs around 150,000 employees globally.

A company this size shutting down a multi-million dollar production will affect thousands of U.S. workers and our transportation sector as a whole.

I bet Elon Musk is grinning from ear to ear at this news!