NASA's Inspector General (IG) predicts that the US will have to spend $90 million per seat for flights on the CST-100 Starliner, a spacecraft currently being constructed by Boeing to transport people to the International Space Station (ISS).

In a report released last week, the IG also stated that the estimated average cost per seat for flights on SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which is contracted under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program to also deliver people to the ISS, is approximately $55 million. The findings revealed that both Boeing and SpaceX "face significant safety and technical challenges with parachutes, propulsion, and launch abort systems that need to be resolved prior to receiving NASA authorization to transport crew to the ISS."

"The complexity of these issues has already caused at least a 2-year delay in both contractors' development, testing, and qualification schedules and may further delay certification of the launch vehicles by an additional year," the report continued.

In a November 14 tweet, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said that it doesn't "seem right" that Boeing is being paid more per seat for its Starliner than the SpaceX is receiving for the Dragon capsule, adding: "meaning [it's] not fair that Boeing gets so much more for the same thing."

Boeing released a statement Monday refuting several claims made in the NASA IG report.

"We strongly disagree with the report's conclusions about CST-100 Starliner pricing and readiness, and we owe it to the space community and the American public to share the facts the Inspector General [IG] missed," Jim Chilton, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Launch, is quoted as saying in the statement.

"Each member of the Boeing team has a personal stake in the safety, quality and integrity of what we offer our customers, and since Day One, the Starliner team has approached this program with a commitment to design, develop and launch a vehicle that we and NASA can be proud of."

In regards to to the per-seat cost estimate, Boeing said that its craft "will fly the equivalent of a fifth passenger in cargo for NASA, so the per-seat pricing should be considered based on five seats rather than four."

"For proprietary, competitive reasons Boeing does not disclose specific pricing information, but we are confident our average seat pricing to NASA is below the figure cited," the statement added.

However, the IG report tells a different story, claiming that NASA agreed to pay Boeing $287.2 million above its fixed prices "to mitigate a perceived 18-month gap in ISS flights anticipated in 2019 for the company's third through sixth crewed missions and to ensure the company continued as a second commercial crew provider."

"For these four missions, NASA essentially paid Boeing higher prices to address a schedule slippage caused by Boeing's 13-month delay in completing the ISS Design Certification Review milestone," the report continued.

The crew demonstration flights on the Starliner and Dragon are slated to take place some time in 2020.

Source: RIA Novosti

Related Links
NASA's Inspector General
Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The Space Media Network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceMediaNetwork Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceMediaNetwork Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

NASA adds 5 more companies to bid for work on moon mission
Washington (UPI) Nov 19, 2019
NASA has announced the addition of five new companies eligible to bid for the contracts for the space agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. SpaceX, Blue Origin, Ceres Robotics, Sierra Nevada Corp. and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems are all working to design and build lunar landers capable of delivering science and technology payloads, including rovers and science experiments, to the moon's surface. The five new companies will compete for contracts with nine previously announc ... read more