The Boeing Starliner spacecraft that flew Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS is pictured right here docked to the station’s Concord module. Credit score: NASA
On Thursday, NASA launched sobering results from an impartial investigation into the 2024 crewed Boeing Starliner check flight that left two astronauts stranded in area for months, putting blame not solely on {hardware} failures, however the company’s personal management and tradition.
In a press conference, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman mentioned the company had now categorized the incident as a kind A mishap — the identical classification utilized to the Columbia and Challenger shuttle disasters — one thing he believes ought to have occurred from the beginning.
What occurred
The Starliner Crewed Flight Check launched June 5, 2024, on what was presupposed to be an eight-to-14-day mission. Throughout rendezvous with the ISS, a number of thrusters failed and the car — which was presupposed to dock autonomously — briefly misplaced management. Controllers and crew have been in a position to get well the craft and efficiently dock with the station, however the spacecraft’s issues stored astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on the ISS for 93 days. Starliner returned to Earth autonomously in September 2024, and the astronauts got here dwelling aboard SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission in March 2025.
Isaacman emphasised that the implications of the thruster failures might have been far worse. “At that second, had totally different choices been made, had thrusters not been recovered, or had docking been unsuccessful, the end result of this mission might have been very very totally different,” he mentioned.
Starliner’s troubles predated the crewed mission — each of its earlier uncrewed check flights skilled thruster failures and propulsion points. However Isaacman mentioned prior investigations “stopped in need of the proximate or the direct trigger, handled it with a repair, or accepted the problem as an unexplained anomaly.”
What the investigation discovered
Through the press convention, Isaacman walked reporters via the findings of the independent investigation that NASA chartered in February 2025 and that was accomplished in November, characterizing its conclusions as proof of failures stretching again to this system’s earliest days.
The report recognized three root causes: First, NASA’s method to managing Boeing was too fingers off and “left the company with out the methods information … required to confidently certify a human-rated spacecraft,” Isaacman mentioned. Second, Boeing’s propulsion design “allowed {hardware} to function outdoors qualification limits,” placing crew security in danger. And third, the company’s want to protect two crew transportation suppliers (SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner) coloured their evaluation of dangers related to Starliner.
Isaacman broke down the failures throughout three phases of the mission. Earlier than launch, he mentioned the thruster dangers flagged throughout earlier flights have been by no means absolutely understood and fixes have been incomplete. Witness statements, he added, mirrored a perception inside program administration that the company’s industrial crew program, which companions with non-public aerospace corporations (like SpaceX and Boeing) to move astronauts to the ISS, “might solely succeed if Starliner launched.”
Whereas the crew was on orbit, conversations over find out how to convey them dwelling turned nasty. Isaacman mentioned discourse “deteriorated into unprofessional conduct” as some members continued to push for Starliner’s viability moderately than specializing in security. The investigation’s interviews bore that out with one witness calling it “most likely the ugliest setting that I’ve been in,” whereas others described yelling in conferences, security engineers being berated on muted mics, and a local weather the place dissenting views have been ignored.
“Essentially the most troubling failure revealed by this investigation shouldn’t be {hardware},” Isaacman mentioned. “It’s decision-making and management that, if left unchecked, might create a tradition incompatible with human spaceflight.”
What’s a kind A mishap?
Isaacman burdened that the kind A designation is a standard classification used throughout the federal authorities, triggered by both lack of life or greater than $2 million in damages.
Within the fast aftermath of the Starliner mission, NASA didn’t initially classify the occasion as a mishap, regardless that prices exceeded the kind A threshold by an element of greater than 100. Isaacman attributed that call to concern over this system’s popularity.
He famous the identical label applies to occasions as different as a latest WB-57 plane touchdown with out its touchdown gear deployed and the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters, and mentioned evaluating Starliner’s state of affairs to these tragedies in severity can be inaccurate.
In response to a reporter’s query, Isaacman reiterated that putting Starliner in the identical class because the shuttle disasters shouldn’t be drawing an equivalence between them — the designation is outlined by a injury threshold in {dollars}. What issues is what the classification triggers; in NASA’s case, a kind A designation requires an impartial investigation and administrator-level consideration. “I don’t assume there may be something that’s flawed about that course of,” he mentioned.
What comes subsequent?
Isaacman framed the announcement as an train in transparency, saying NASA should personal its errors to stop them from recurring. He mentioned there can be management accountability and that NASA is rebuilding its in-house engineering experience — what he described as shifting from a posture of searching for “perception” into contractors’ work towards extra hands-on “oversight.”
That features changing contractor positions again to civil servant roles, which Isaacman mentioned is geared toward “regaining some misplaced muscle reminiscence on our engineering expertise.” NASA is not going to fly one other crew on Starliner “till technical causes are understood and corrected, the propulsion system is absolutely certified and acceptable investigation suggestions are applied,” he mentioned.
As for the way forward for NASA’s industrial crew program, Isaacman pushed again on the notion that industrial contracts are inherently dangerous, noting that personal trade has supported NASA’s missions because the Apollo period. He mentioned America advantages from a number of pathways to orbit and expressed confidence Boeing will stay a companion.
The place Isaacman was blunt and matter-of-fact in laying out NASA’s failures, Affiliate Administrator Amit Shtria struck a extra private tone in his closing remarks. He known as NASA “a household” and shared tales of his decades-long friendships with each astronauts — recalling how Wilmore as soon as known as him on his first shift as flight director simply to joke that “it seems to be like they’ll let anyone run this place,” and the way Williams all the time made some extent to take selfies with him to ship to his mom.
However his voice carried weight when he turned to accountability. “We failed them,” he mentioned of the 2 astronauts. “And regardless that they gained’t say that, now we have to say that.” He urged the NASA workforce to see the announcement not as finger-pointing however as a mannequin for the type of trustworthy self-examination the company wants — earlier than, not after, the worst occurs.
