Boeing Unhappy With Plan to Build Orion Crew Return Vehicle

NASA's Orion spacecraft - now with 100 percent fewer astronauts

Orion Lifeboat Making Waves for Boeing’s Commercial Crew Plans
Space News

Boeing is willing to build a crew capsule for NASA on a commercial fixed-price basis but is troubled by the agency’s plans to continue funding development of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle to serve as a space station lifeboat, according to a Boeing executive.

“With the recent announcement of a crew rescue vehicle as part of Orion, we do now recognize that we would have a cost-plus, government-funded capsule competing against a commercially fixed-price capsule,” Jayne Schnaars, Boeing’s vice president of business development for space exploration, said during a presentation at the Women in Aerospace conference here May 18. “So we’re working with NASA to say, ‘We want this business, we know we can do it, help us.’”

After announcing in February that Orion and the rest of the Constellation program would be canceled in favor of outsourcing routine crew transportation to commercial operators, the White House decided in April to have NASA fund completion of a stripped-down Orion capsule that would launch to the international space station unmanned to serve as an escape craft.

Lockheed Martin, which beat Boeing and its teammate Northrop Grumman in 2006 for an Orion prime contract worth an initial $3.9 billion, welcomed the news as a partial reprieve for the project. But to Boeing, continued NASA funding of an Orion capsule that would need only a launch abort system to start launching crews would add substantial risk to a business case Schnaars said will be a struggle to close.

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Editor’s Note: You can understand Boeing’s concerns here. Orion gives Lockheed Martin a leg up in the competition for commercial crew. Ideally, if a company with this level of skill and experience of Boeing is willing to build you a space vehicle on a fixed-cost basis, you don’t put any obstacles in its path to be able to compete for that work.

Alas, ideally and realistically are on different plains of existence. The Obama Administration is walking a tight rope between encouraging competition and selling the plan to a Congress that is justifiably concerned about massive jobs losses and dislocation and deeply skeptical of a commercial approach.

By partially resurrecting Orion, the Obama Administration was able to mollify critics with a concession that keeps thousands of people employed while positioning the vehicle as a backup should the commercial effort fall short. NASA could decide to upgrade Orion to a full vehicle. Or Lockheed Martin could enter a proposed based upon it in the commercial crew competition.

This is not the best arrangement for Boeing or other competitors like SpaceX, but it might be the sort of concession need to sell the policy. The question is whether or not by doing this, NASA is lessening the chances that companies will compete. Then the space agency ends up with fewer options and potentially greater costs.