Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the ISS in August 2024.(Image source: NASA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
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According to a fresh report issued by the agency, NASA has classified the unsuccessful 2024 test expedition of Boeing’s Starliner capsule similarly to the Challenger and Columbia shuttle catastrophes, as well as the Apollo 13 undertaking.
The space organization has designated the botched voyage, which astonishingly marooned a pair of NASA astronauts in the void for nine months spanning 2024-2025, as a “Type A misfortune” — the most serious categorization in NASA safety administration.
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Essential to the 282-page report’s conclusions are condemnations of defective design, careless monitoring, and insufficient collaboration among individuals entrusted with the mission. NASA has specified, nevertheless, that it intends to continue working with Boeing to evaluate Starliner, desiring its renewal to manned sorties in subsequent years.
“The most disconcerting flaw revealed by this analysis isn’t physical equipment. It’s leadership decision-making which, unless kept in check, may produce a culture that doesn’t align with manned space missions,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman expressed at a press event today (Feb. 19). “To be explicit, NASA will refrain from sending another crew on Starliner until the underlying technological reasons are grasped and rectified.”
Per Isaacman (who was inaugurated as NASA administrator on Dec. 17, 2025, and wasn’t with the agency during the expedition), the Starliner examination should’ve been declared a Type A misfortune as soon as it became clear that the spacecraft’s flawed engines endangered the crew over a year prior. “The record is now being amended,” he incorporated. “Accountability will be demanded from leaders.”
Off to a bad start
Starliner’s misfortunes started not long after it launched on its pioneering manned trial run from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5, 2024. Following the spacecraft’s entry into orbit, multiple issues came to light, including five helium escapades and five malfunctions in the reaction control system (RCS) thrusters.
This pushed engineers to troubleshoot quandaries remotely. Tests at Starliner’s facility in White Sands, New Mexico, indicated that over the spacecraft’s rise to the International Space Station (ISS), the Teflon protectors within the five faulty RCS thrusters probably grew hot and projected out of their allocated positions and, consequently, hindered the propellant flow, according to NASA.
NASA and Boeing’s evaluations extended from days, through weeks, to months, as Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the expedition’s astronauts, were stranded onboard the ISS.
An image of Boeing’s Starliner capsule beyond Earth as it drew close to the International Space Station.
A heat-up exam executed while the vessel was secured to the ISS on July 27, 2024, revealed that the propulsion was back at standard levels, yet NASA engineers stayed concerned that the issue might emerge again through the vessel’s return towards Earth. They likewise had concerns that the helium leaks may destabilize a segment of the vessel’s orbital steering and attitude control system (OMAC) thrusters, which uphold the spacecraft in a secure flightpath.
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Near the close of August, NASA reported that it intended to bring Boeing’s impaired vessel back absent its crew. Wilmore and Williams’ duration in space, initially planned to encompass eight days, extended to 286 before they were collected by a SpaceX Dragon capsule that splashed down on March 18, 2025.
What’s subsequent?
Boeing manufactured the Starliner capsule within NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, a collaboration connecting the agency and private enterprises to transport astronauts to low Earth orbit post the decommissioning of NASA’s space transporters in 2011. As of last year, the company went approximately $2 billion in debt to address numerous hindrances in the evolution of Starliner.
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In spite of the critical appraisal, Isaacman claimed the space organization was determined to collaborate with Boeing to remedy Starliner’s predicaments and reinstate it to manned sorties, expanding that “America gains from using several strategies to transport our crew and load to orbit.” NASA and Boeing continue to assess Starliner’s RCS engines at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, and their intention is to launch a load-only Starliner assignment to the ISS as early as April.
The appraisal surfaces during a period of intensified observation for NASA, as the organization readies for the launch of its manned Artemis II assignment to the moon. Boeing serves as the primary contractor for the core phase of the Space Launch System implemented in the Artemis mission, suggesting it was responsible for the configuration, enhancement and review of the immense orange fuselage housing the engines which will grant the rocket its preliminary thrust into ascent.
“Feigning that unpleasant scenarios did not occur imparts incorrect lessons,” Isaacman stated. “An inability to learn encourages repeated error and proposes that, in manned space travel, failure is a potential choice. It isn’t.”
TOPICSNASA
Ben TurnerSocial Links NavigationActing Trending News Editor
Ben Turner is a U.K. situated writer and editor at Live Science. His domain encompasses physics and astronomy, tech plus climate change. He graduated from University College London possessing a degree in particle physics ahead of qualifying as a journalist. During down time, Ben appreciates literature, strumming the guitar and subjecting himself to chess upsets.
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Marooned no more! Chinese astronauts left in the lurch now have a journey home following the take-off of a remote-controlled ‘safety capsule’