NASA boss blasts Boeing and space agency managers for Starliner’s botched astronaut flight

In this photo provided by NASA the Boeing Starliner spacecraft with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard approaches the International Space Station on June 6, 2024. (NASA via AP, File)

NASA’s new boss blasted Boeing and the space agency Thursday for Starliner’s botched flight that left two astronauts stuck for months at the International Space Station.

Administrator Jared Isaacman said poor leadership and decision-making at Boeing led to Starliner’s troubles. He also blamed NASA managers for failing to intervene and get Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back more quickly.

The two test pilots, now retired from NASA, spent more than nine months at the station before catching a lift back with SpaceX last March.

Isaacman said Starliner’s problems must be better understood and fixed before any more astronauts strap in.

Isaacman upgraded the seriousness of Starliner’s troubled astronaut debut, declaring it a “Type A mishap,” something that could endanger a crew. Both the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters also involved cultural and leadership missteps. It is a mistake that Starliner was not designated a serious mishap right from the start, Isaacman said, citing internal pressure to keep Boeing on board and flights on track.

“This is just about doing the right thing,” he said. “This is about getting the record straight.”

Thruster failures and other problems almost prevented Wilmore and Williams from reaching the space station following liftoff in 2024. The thruster analyses continue by Boeing.

“We almost did have a really terrible day,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, referring to a potential loss of life.

Boeing said the report by NASA will help the company move forward in ensuring crew safety, and stressed that the Starliner program would continue.

There is no timeline for when Boeing can launch Starliner on a supply run, essentially another test flight to prove its safety before astronaut flights. The grounding leaves SpaceX as the only U.S. taxi service for astronauts.

“Boeing has made substantial progress on corrective actions for technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team,” Boeing said in a statement.

Even before the troubled astronaut flight, Boeing was struggling with Starliner issues. The first test flight in 2019, without anyone on board, ended up in the wrong orbit and forced a repeat mission, which had its own difficulties.

NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX in 2014, in the wake of the space shuttles’ retirement, to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting lab. Their contracts are worth billions. SpaceX just delivered its 13th crew to the space station for NASA since 2020.

Kshatriya said the space agency must do better moving forward.

“We have to own our part of this,” he said. As for Wilmore and Williams, “We failed them.”

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Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press