NASA’s new boss lashed out at Boeing and the space agency on Thursday over the failed Starliner flight that left two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station for months.
Chief Executive Jared Isaacman said Boeing’s poor leadership and decision-making led to Starliner’s troubles. He also blamed NASA administrators for failing to intervene more quickly to bring back Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
The two test pilots, now retired from NASA, spent more than nine months on the space station before returning on a SpaceX flight last March.
Isaacman said Starliner’s problems must be better understood and solved before more astronauts can buckle up.
In a sweeping and forceful move, Isaacman elevated the seriousness of the Starliner astronauts’ debut, declaring it a “Type A accident” that could have endangered the crew. The Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters also involved cultural and leadership failures. Isaacman said it was a mistake that the Starliner was not deemed a serious accident from the outset, citing internal pressure on Boeing to continue operations and keep flights running.
“It’s just about doing the right thing,” he said. “This is to set the record straight.”
Thruster failure and other problems have all but prevented Wilmore and Williams from reaching the space station after liftoff in 2024. Boeing continues thruster analysis.
“We almost had a very horrific day,” NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said of the potential loss of life.
NASA released a 312-page Starliner report during the second refueling test of its lunar rocket at Kennedy Space Center. A hydrogen fuel leak disrupted the first rehearsal earlier this month and hampered astronauts’ first mission to the moon since 1972.
Boeing said the findings will help it make progress in ensuring crew safety and stressed that the Starliner program will continue. With NASA planning to decommission the space station in 2030, time is running out, although Isaacman, a self-funded space traveler, predicts there will be “inexhaustible demand” for multiple paths into orbit once private outposts flourish.
There’s currently no timetable for when Boeing could launch Starliner for a supply run, essentially another test flight to prove its safety before astronauts fly it. The grounding leaves SpaceX as the only U.S. company providing taxi services to astronauts.
“Boeing has made substantial progress in correcting the technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team,” Boeing said in a statement.
Even before the astronaut flight ran into trouble, Boeing had been struggling with Starliner issues. The first test flight in 2019, without any crew, ended up on the wrong track and was forced to repeat the mission, which came with its own difficulties.
In 2014, after the space shuttle was retired, NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX to transport astronauts to and from the orbiting laboratory. Their contracts are worth billions of dollars. SpaceX just delivered its 13th astronaut to NASA since 2020.
Kshatriya said the space agency must move forward to do better.
“We have to shoulder our responsibilities,” he said. As for Wilmore and Williams, “We let them down.”
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