Boeing Weighs Options for Troubled Starliner Space Program

(Bloomberg) — Boeing Co. is weighing options for the future of its troubled Starliner space capsule program as part of a broad portfolio review under new Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg, according to a person familiar with the matter.

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The assessment is at an early stage and no decisions about divesting the Starliner program have been made, said the person, asking not to be identified discussing nonpublic information. The company could decide to keep the business.

Boeing isn’t currently pursuing a sale of its broader space operations or offloading NASA contracts around the International Space Station and Space Launch System, the huge rocket intended to eventually carry American astronauts back to the moon, the person said. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Friday that Boeing was exploring a sale of its NASA business.

Boeing doesn’t comment on market rumors or speculation, a spokesperson said by email.

Parting with Starliner would free Boeing of a deeply troubled program that has racked up more than $1.8 billion in charges. That includes $250 million during the third quarter after a botched flight test that has left two Americans stuck at the space station for months.

The Starliner review comes as Ortberg works to end a crippling, six-week labor strike that has idled production of key jetliners, including the cash-cow 737 Max. The work stoppage is exacerbating the company’s strained finances, with its credit ratings on the edge of junk and worsening cash burn that the company said earlier this week will extend into 2025.

The CEO said he wants to focus resources on Boeing’s core commercial aircraft and defense divisions and is looking to streamline its broad portfolio. Ortberg has begun a review of the Boeing’s businesses that he expects to conclude by the end of the year, he said earlier this week.

“We’re better off doing less and doing it better than doing more and not doing it well,” Ortberg said on Boeing’s Oct. 23 earnings call.

Even before to the latest mishap, the future of Starliner was unclear beyond a plan for a half-dozen more missions to the ISS for NASA. And as Starliner ran into multiple delays, SpaceX’s rival Crew Dragon capsule has made 43 visits to the ISS since 2019, carrying both crew and cargo for NASA.

A step away from its space business would mark a major shift for a company that’s been integral to America’s history of exploration beyond the atmosphere. Boeing’s lineage stretches back more than 50 years to the Saturn V that first sent men to the moon and today includes building satellites, the clandestine X-37B space plane, the SLS moon rocket and managing the ISS.

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Yet in the last decade, Boeing has fallen far behind major technological leaps made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and other “new space” firms that have championed reusable rocket technology. The ISS is heading toward retirement, and Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp. have also been shopping for a buyer for their United Launch Alliance joint venture over the past year.

Boeing shares were little changed as of 3:01 p.m. in New York on Friday.

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