Astronauts' plight piles pressure on Boeing's struggling space unit

NASA's decision to send Boeing's Starliner capsule home without astronauts follows years of missteps by the planemaker in its space business and raises doubts over the future of the unit, analysts and industry sources said. Taking NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station (ISS) was to have been a turning point for Starliner after years of delays, technical glitches and supply chain mishaps. Starliner has cost Boeing $1.6b in overruns since 2016, according to a Reuters analysis of securities filings. The astronauts were to stay at the ISS for about eight days, but problems with Starliner have extended that to eight months. Starliner's propulsion system malfunctioned and NASA deemed the troublesome thrusters unsafe for the return journey. So Wilmore and Williams will be brought home in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule next year, the latest humiliation for Boeing at the hands of Elon Musk's dominant space company. The mission was meant to be a final test before NASA could certify Starliner for routine flights. Boeing's new CEO Kelly Ortberg now must decide whether to keep pouring money into Starliner, which analysts doubt will ever be profitable, or to unravel the capsule business and focus on rebuilding the tarnished reputation of its core planemaking division. Elsewhere in its space business, U.S. government watchdogs have repeatedly reported Boeing is years behind schedule and several billions of dollars over budget as main contractor on NASA's giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, a centerpiece vehicle of America's moon program. And the aerospace giant is already trying to sell a separate rocket launching firm it jointly owns with Lockheed Martin, Reuters reported last month.<br/>