NASA’s safety team has criticized space agency officials for their handling of the aborted Starliner mission that left two astronauts stranded on board the International Space Station (ISS). A new report highlights the wave of uncertainty that lurked behind Boeing’s unfortunate saga, raising doubts about whether NASA can handle safety issues with future missions like Artemis.
For months, NASA and Boeing officials assured the media that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams could leave the ISS in a faulty Boeing spacecraft. However, due to the severity of the situation, NASA should have immediately declared the incident as a mistake to investigate the agency’s safety office, according to a new report by NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP).
“The findings of ASAP were the lack of a declared in-flight accident or close call that had an impact over a long, extended period of time … where risk ownership and decision-making authority were unclear,” Charlie Precourt, former space motor commander and ASAP member, told Ars Technica.
Safety first
Boeing’s Starliner capsule was launched atop the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket on June 5 for its first crewed test flight. The spacecraft had difficulty docking with the space station after five of the spacecraft’s runners failed during approach. The Starliner also developed five helium leaks, one of which was identified before launch.
The mission was scheduled for eight days, but the crew’s return was delayed several times as ground teams conducted tests on the vehicle and collected data before giving the green light for the astronauts to return to Earth. NASA eventually determined that the spacecraft was not fit to carry astronauts back home and instead returned the crew to SpaceX’s Dragon’s spacecraft.
Astronauts Wilmore and Williams ended up spending nearly nine months on the ISS while officials downplayed the problem and debated whether or not to return the astronauts to the Starliner. On September 6, 2024, Boeing’s Starliner left the ISS and returned to Earth without a crew.
NASA’s procedural requirements dictate that the agency must declare an error in the event of a mission failure. The agency made the official announcement following Starliner’s failed first mission to the ISS in 2019, when the spacecraft failed to reach the space station. Declaring an error starts an internal process in NASA’s safety office to begin an investigation and document lessons learned for future missions.
“Procedurally, investigative reports are accompanied by a classified declaration, so they get official status in NASA records,” Precourt was quoted as saying. “Certainly, this anomaly should be front and center for a long time.”
A wave of confusion
By failing to officially declare the Starliner mission an accident, NASA created a wave of confusion within the agency, delaying the launch of an investigation. For months, NASA was deciding whether to return the crew to the Starliner or opt to board the SpaceX capsule. The agency was determined to send a message to the media that crews were not trapped in space and that Starliner was capable of returning crews to Earth.
“There’s a big difference, philosophically, between us working to prove that Starliner is safe to be returned by the crew, compared to the philosophy of Starliner not being returned… until we learn how to make sure that on-orbit failure doesn’t happen again when we go in with Starliner,” Precourt told Ars Technica. “The latter would have been the correct guide. However, there were many participants who believed that the method was the old method. This confusion continued throughout the summer.”
In its report, the safety team recommended that NASA remove this ambiguity in the event of a future error that could jeopardize the safety of its employees.
Despite the Starliner failure, NASA hasn’t given up on Boeing’s space program just yet. In late November, the space agency announced it would revise its commercial crew contract with Boeing and reduce the number of Starliner missions to four instead of six. Starliner’s next mission to the ISS is scheduled for no later than April 2026, although the spacecraft will fly without a crew this time.
