Boeing announced October 27 that it will make an additional $185 million to cover the cost of re-flying its CST-100 Starliner commercial passenger vehicle.
The company announced that amount when it released its second-quarter financial results, saying the cost would be in line with the second unmanned orbiter now expected by 2022. Flight test and last assessment of remaining work.
The company took in $410 million in January 2020 for the estimated cost to complete the second drone flight at the time, after the original OFT mission was halted in December 2019 due to software issues.
Boeing planned to conduct this second unmanned test flight, OFT-2, in early August, but halted the takeoff attempt hours before the scheduled takeoff when the spacecraft’s engine valves did not open.
Engineers found 13 stuck valves, possibly when nitrogen tetraoxide propellant leaked through the valves and mixed with moisture to form nitric acid, corroding the valves.
