Boeing, SpaceX Confident They Can Meet NASA Safety Requirements Written 20 September 2018

Space News reports that although The Boeing Company and SpaceX have “been struggling to meet safety thresholds established by NASA for commercial crew vehicles,” executives from both companies speaking at the AIAA SPACE Forum “said they now believed their vehicles met that and related safety requirements.” Boeing Vice President and Commercial Crew Program Manager John Mulholland described the company’s efforts to assess the overall loss of crew, ascent and entry risk, and loss of mission requirements, “noting those analyses have driven changes to the vehicle design, such as increased micrometeoroid and orbital debris protection.” Mulholland added that “our analysis shows we can exceed the NASA requirements for all three of those criteria.” SpaceX Director of Commercial Crew Mission Management Benjamin Reed “said his company was in a similar situation.” He added, “We’re looking right now to be meeting the requirements.” Although SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hinted earlier this week at a slight delay in the company’s crew vehicle schedule, Reed confirmed only that the company is “working closely with NASA to find the right dates.” According to NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Kathy Leuders, “We’re learning from a NASA perspective about how to understand the assessments that we’re getting from each of the contractors and how to apply it. We at the NASA team are assessing the modeling that each of the providers has done.” Leuders also cautioned against using the loss-of-crew criteria as the sole focus of safety efforts. 
More Info (Space News)