Boeing fires back at NASA Inspector General regarding commercial crew report

[Elderberry]

Space News by Jeff Foust — November 19, 2019

Boeing said Nov. 18 that a report issued last week by NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) regarding the commercial crew program, including claims that the company considered withdrawing from the program, was inaccurate.

In a lengthy release, Boeing took on a number of statements in the Nov. 14 OIG report that concluded that NASA overpaid Boeing by hundreds of millions of dollars for work on the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, including claims by unnamed NASA officials that the payments were needed “to ensure the contractor continued as a second crew transportation provider.”

“Boeing has made significant investments in the Commercial Crew program, and we are fully committed to flying the CST-100 Starliner and keeping the International Space Station crewed and operational,” the company stated. “Any implication that we ever wavered in our participation in Commercial Crew is false.”

That statement was one of several rebuttals of conclusions made in the OIG report, focused on NASA’s decision to provide Boeing $287.2 million for “additional flexibilities” in its commercial crew work to address a potential gap in crew access. The report concluded that other approaches to dealing with that gap, including buying Soyuz seats, made $187 million of that additional funding unnecessary.

More: https://spacenews.com/boeing-fires-back-at-nasa-inspector-general-regarding-commercial-crew-report/