It's complicated (in a way that makes it worse). Capsules need 6 months happy path refurb - "reusable up to 10 times with a six-month turnaround time" (see http

It's complicated (in a way that makes it worse). Capsules need 6 months happy path refurb - "reusable up to 10 times with a six-month turnaround time" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Starliner#Spacecraft_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Starliner#Spacecraft_ch... ). This means that some components such as pressure section are qualified for 10 flights, but others are expected to be replaced sooner. The actual refurb will be a lot longer unless they have a lot of flights to dial that in. The real problem with Boeing is lack of testing / iteration. This is the company that perfected "paperwork milestones" - where they prove that they in theory can do something. This is supposed to be exhaustive, but theoretically validating things scales abysmally with complexity. Originally designed to speed up progress by claiming credit for work done previously this devolved into current state of affairs. I want to emphasize that from maximizing shareholder value which is the mode Boeing operated since the McDonnell Douglas merger I believe this to be a good short and maybe even medium term strategy. This is because of cost plus / a lot of programs get cancelled environment Boeing enjoyed and lower risk of milestone payment delays. AKA, if you test something and you find an issue you risk blowing up schedule now, but paperwork milestones guarantee payments and delay risk of finding out something is wrong. Boeing would have probably keep getting away with this, but new age / more agile aerospace companies showed up. Not only they sucked up all of the talent, but also the only way to survive was to iterate and iterate fast... so they did. Source: worked in the field for 10 years.