NASA’s new head criticized Boeing and the space agency Thursday for their Failed Starliner flight Which left two astronauts stranded for several months on the International Space Station International Space Station.
Director Jared Isaacman said poor leadership and decision-making at Boeing led to the Starliner’s problems. He also blamed NASA managers for failing to intervene and rescue Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams Come back more quickly.
The two test pilots, now retired from NASA, spent more than nine months on the station before boarding a return flight with SpaceX last March.
Isaacman said Starliner’s problems must be better understood and resolved before more astronauts join.
Isaacman upped the risk of the troubled Starliner astronaut’s first appearance, declaring it a “Type A mishap,” something that could put the crew in danger. The Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters also involved cultural and leadership errors. Isaacman said it was a mistake not to classify the Starliner as a serious mishap from the beginning, citing internal pressure to keep Boeing on board and the flights on track.
“It’s just about doing the right thing,” he added. “It’s about putting things right.”
Propulsion malfunctions and other problems nearly prevented Willmore and Williams from reaching the space station after liftoff in 2024. Boeing is continuing propulsion analyses.
“We had a really terrible day,” NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya said, referring to the potential loss of life.
Boeing said the NASA report will help the company move forward with ensuring crew safety, and stressed that the Starliner program will continue.
There is no timeline for when Boeing can launch the Starliner on a supply flight, which is essentially another test flight to prove its safety before astronaut flights. The grounding decision leaves SpaceX as the only US taxi service for astronauts.
“Boeing has made significant progress on corrective actions for the technical challenges we encountered and has made significant cultural changes across the team,” Boeing said in a statement.
Even before the astronauts’ troubled flight, Boeing was plagued by Starliner problems. The first test flight in 2019, without anyone on board, ended in the wrong orbit and was forced to repeat the mission, which had its own difficulties.
NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX in 2014, following the retirement of the space shuttles, to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting laboratory. Their contracts are worth billions. SpaceX has 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 share of this,” he said. As for Willmore and Williams, “We let them down.”
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