Amid Boeing's Starliner Troubles, WA Space Industry Thrives

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It'd be reasonable to think Washington's space economy has a lot riding on Boeing's Starliner, the spacecraft that left two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station and headed back to Earth with an empty cabin Friday.

The astronauts were scheduled to return on Starliner in June after a week on the ISS, but thruster failures and helium leaks on the way there made NASA decide a trip back on the Boeing spacecraft was too risky. Boeing's troubles with Starliner date back years, including a flawed, unmanned test flight in 2019 that had to be repeated in 2022.

But, outside of some classified satellite jobs that pop up in South King County, Boeing's efforts in the Seattle area are largely centered on its commercial airplane business, according to industry experts. Instead, the biggest players in the Seattle area's space industry are Amazon, Blue Origin and SpaceX.

⁘The Seattle space ecosystem is small but mighty because we have companies here that cover the entire space supply chain,⁘ said Stan Shull, founder of space technology consulting firm Alliance Victory.

Shull said there are the space and tech giants like SpaceX and Amazon manufacturing thousands of satellites in their Starlink and Project Kuiper divisions, respectively, and Blue Origin with its rocket engines and spacecraft. There are also the dozens of startups and suppliers that supplement the industry, providing everything from thrusters for NASA spacecraft to in-space satellite servicing.

Some companies, led by former Blue Origin and SpaceX employees, are driving innovation as well. STOKE Space, a startup based in Kent with a testing facility in Moses Lake , is working on fully reusable rocket technology.

STOKE announced last year that it received $100 million in a funding round, bringing its total funding up to $175 million.

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