During its space debut last December with
no one on board, the Starliner ended up in
the wrong orbit and could not reach the
International Space Station. Ground controllers
barely had time to solve another software
problem that could have destroyed the capsule
at flight’s end.
Boeing will repeat the flight later this year before
attempting to launch astronauts next spring.
SpaceX, meanwhile, successfully launched two
NASA astronauts to the space station in May.
They will return home next month aboard
their Dragon capsule, splashing down off the
Florida coast.
In hindsight, NASA did not focus enough on
the software portion of the Boeing flight,
Stich said. The space agency instead probably
concentrated more on SpaceX because of
its non-traditional approach to software
development, he acknowledged.
Boeing had plenty of experience working on
large NASA projects like the space shuttle and
space station, and so NASA was “a little more
used to the Boeing process,” Stich said.
“It’s often natural for a human being to spend
more time on that newer approach, and maybe
we didn’t quite take the time we needed with
the more traditional approach,” he added.
NASA has since added more of its own staff to
monitor software development at both Boeing
and SpaceX.
NASA is also borrowing SpaceX’s “robust”
approach to software, which involves going
back to the designers following testing for
feedback, said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s new