At a news conference on Thursday, NASA released a report of findings from the Program Investigation Team examining the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Crewed Flight Test as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
“The Boeing Starliner spacecraft has faced challenges throughout its uncrewed and most recent crewed missions. While Boeing built Starliner, NASA accepted it and launched two astronauts to space. The technical difficulties encountered during docking with the International Space Station were very apparent,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
“To undertake missions that change the world, we must be transparent about both our successes and our shortcomings. We have to own our mistakes and ensure they never happen again. Beyond technical issues, it is clear that NASA permitted overarching programmatic objectives of having two providers capable of transporting astronauts to-and-from orbit, influence engineering and operational decisions, especially during and immediately after the mission. We are correcting those mistakes. Today, we are formally declaring a Type A mishap and ensuring leadership accountability so situations like this never reoccur. We look forward to working with Boeing as both organizations implement corrective actions and return Starliner to flight only when ready.”
Starliner launched June 5, 2024, on its first crewed test flight to the International Space Station. Originally planned as an eight-to-14-day mission, the flight was extended to 93 days after propulsion system anomalies were identified while the spacecraft was in orbit. After reviewing flight data and conducting gro …
