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How Much Has Boeing Lost on Starliner? What Its Filings Actually Show

Boeing disclosed $523 million in Commercial Crew losses for 2024 and an immaterial reach-forward loss for 2025. The figures do not establish a cumulative Starliner total.
From TheFinanceBase Team4 min to read
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Boeing reported $523 million in Commercial Crew losses in 2024, following $288 million in 2023. Its 2025 annual report described the year’s reach-forward loss as immaterial. Those disclosures show substantial costs, but Boeing’s latest filing does not state a single cumulative lifetime loss for Starliner—and the yearly figures should not be presented as one.

What Boeing has reported in losses

Boeing’s annual reports identify these Commercial Crew reach-forward losses and charges:

Period Reported amount What the figure represents
2019 $489 million A Commercial Crew charge cited in Boeing’s 2021 annual report.
Third quarter of 2021 $185 million An increase to the reach-forward loss reported for that quarter.
2022 $288 million An increase to the reach-forward loss reported for the year.
2023 $288 million Commercial Crew losses incurred in 2023, as reported in Boeing’s 2024 annual report.
2024 $523 million Commercial Crew losses incurred in 2024, as reported in Boeing’s 2024 annual report.
2025 Immaterial Boeing’s 2025 annual report characterized its 2025 reach-forward loss as immaterial; it did not give a dollar figure in the cited disclosure.

The figures are drawn from disclosures made in different periods and do not form a reliable cumulative total. Some describe an increase to an estimate, while others describe losses incurred for a year. Estimates and contract scope can also change. Boeing’s 2024 annual report and 2025 annual report provide the more recent annual context.

What “reach-forward loss” means—and what it does not

A reach-forward loss is an accounting estimate of expected losses on a contract. It is not necessarily a direct measure of cash Boeing spent during the year the loss was reported. The reported amounts also should not be treated as a simple running tally: a charge or increase in one filing may reflect changed expectations about the contract, and the disclosures do not provide a complete lifetime Starliner ledger.

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For 2024, Boeing attributed the increased loss primarily to schedule delays, higher testing and certification costs, and higher costs for post-certification missions. The company’s 2024 annual report is the source for that explanation.

Why the latest filing still does not give a lifetime total

Boeing’s second-quarter 2026 filing says the program has recorded losses but does not state a cumulative Starliner loss. As of June 30, 2026, it reported $558 million in capitalized precontract costs and $19 million in potential supplier termination liabilities connected with unauthorized future missions. Neither balance is a new reach-forward loss, so neither should be added to the annual figures above.

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Boeing said mission timing and requirements remained under discussion with NASA and could affect its estimates, and warned that further losses may be recorded. See the company’s 2026 second-quarter filing for those balances and qualifications.

Why Starliner became so costly

The clearest recent operational trigger was Starliner’s first crewed test flight, launched June 5, 2024. Propulsion-system anomalies led NASA to return the spacecraft without its crew after a 93-day flight. NASA’s investigation identified interacting hardware failures, gaps in qualification, leadership missteps, and cultural breakdowns. NASA classified the flight as a Type A mishap because of the loss of spacecraft maneuverability and associated financial damages.

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The astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, returned to Earth on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission in March 2025. That mission history explains why Starliner’s test and certification work continued, but NASA’s mishap classification is not itself a statement of Boeing’s cumulative financial loss. NASA’s investigation release describes the findings and classification.

How Boeing’s losses differ from NASA contract and oversight figures

Several large numbers associated with Commercial Crew answer different questions from “How much did Boeing lose?” Keep them separate:

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  • $4.2 billion: NASA’s 2014 fixed-price contract award to Boeing. It is the contract value, not Boeing’s loss.
  • $2.6 billion: NASA’s 2014 award to SpaceX, provided here as contract context—not as a measure of Boeing’s costs.
  • $17 million: NASA’s Office of Inspector General says NASA spent this additional amount to accelerate SpaceX flights originally planned for Starliner. It is NASA spending, not a Boeing loss.
  • $127.9 million and $43 million: The OIG questioned $127.9 million in Boeing payments in its current review and had questioned $43 million in its 2019 report. A questioned payment is an oversight finding, not by itself a final determination that the payment was improper or an established loss incurred by Boeing.

These distinctions come from NASA’s Office of Inspector General report. Its figures should not be added to Boeing’s reported reach-forward losses.

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What comes next for Starliner

NASA’s September 28, 2026 update describes a sequence of planned engineering and certification steps—not completed milestones. NASA and Boeing made thermal modifications to the service module and agreed to an additional thruster-valve design modification following an investigation that produced 61 recommendations.

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  • Starliner-1: NASA planned an uncrewed engineering evaluation flight to gather performance data and assess residual risk, with a possible launch in December 2026 or January 2027.
  • Starliner-2: NASA’s current plan is a crewed flight in 2028, contingent on testing and certification.

Those dates are targets, not guarantees. NASA’s September 28, 2026 program update gives the current plan. Separately, NASA’s FY 2027 budget request says a November 2025 contract modification reduced the definitive order to four missions, with two remaining as options, and describes Starliner-1 as a cargo-delivery and upgrade-validation flight. That contract description is in NASA’s FY 2027 budget request.

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