NASA labels Starliner danger level as Type A, same as Challenger

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER —  NASA officials labeled the Boeing Starliner saga — which suffered from helium leaks and thruster issues and its crew had to use SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to return to Earth — as the same level of danger as the fatal Challenger mission.

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What You Need To Know

• NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said there was a “culture” where more importance was given to Starliner
• Officials revealed that the thruster issue on Starliner has not been resolved
• A NASA official said the U.S. space agency “failed” the Starliner astronauts

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During Thursday afternoon’s press conference, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman labeled what happened to Boeing’s Starliner capsule as a Type A mishap, where the crew could have been in real danger if things had not gone as they did.

NASA released a 311-page report on what happened with the Starliner mission.

A recap of the Starliner mission

In 2024, Cmdr. Barry “Butch” Wilmore and pilot Sunita “Suni” Williams were members of the Boeing Crew Flight Test as they experimented with Boeing’s experimental Starliner capsule and go to the International Space Station in what was supposed to be a days-long mission.

However, from trying to launch with liquid helium leaks and thruster issues on the Starliner, the eightish-day mission on the space station turned into a nine-month stay.  

NASA eventually deemed Calypso, the name of the Starliner capsule, unsafe and returned to Earth without Wilmore and Williams.

The U.S. space agency already had a plan to bring them home, as Spectrum News was the first to confirm that NASA was considering the use of a SpaceX Dragon capsule for their ride home.  Which was the case.

They have since retired from NASA.

Scroll down to the interactive timeline of events of what happened with Startliner.

Isaacman explains what a Type A mishap is

During the Thursday afternoon teleconference, Isaacman started off by reading a letter that he sent to NASA employees, which listed the history of Starliner and the issues it faced.

“While we have identified organizational root causes, the technical investigations to identify proximate (direct) causes for the service module and crew module thruster anomalies remain ongoing. Acknowledging that present-day reality is essential to mission success,” he read off.

When Starliner was coming in to dock with the International Space Station, five of its thrusters failed and once the system returned, only four came back online. This also resulted in the loss of 6 Degree of Freedom (6DOF) controllers.

Isaacman stated in the letter that the cause for the failure has not been identified and officials with both Boeing and NASA are still working to determine the cause.

He also stated in the letter that this resulted in the mission being labeled a serious Type A mishap and originally, it was not declared as such. A Type A mishap is the worst type of accident category that NASA has, which can result in mission failure, resulting in a $2 million or more financial loss, the aircraft or spacecraft being damaged or destroyed and injury or death.  

This is the same category as the fatal 1986 Challenger space shuttle mission or the 2003 space shuttle Columbia incident.

During a question-and-answer session, Spectrum News asked Isaacman just how much danger Wilmore and Williams were in.

“How much danger were they were in? Losing 6doff controllers is a huge deal. I actually want to give a lot of credit, and I mentioned it in my remarks earlier, to the flight controllers that made the decision to kind of challenge some of our flight rules and bring that crew to a safe haven, which is the International Space Station. Had that not taken place, had thrusters not been recovered, it could have very well been a different, different outcome,” he answered.

He continued to say that once the Starliner returned to Earth, there was another thruster failure, adding, “So, the spaceship was not healthy.”

He stressed that Starliner will not fly again until everything has been resolved, which means it may not have an uncrewed test launch to the space station in April of this year.

‘And we failed them’

Another thing that was revealed is that while there were mechanical and technical issues, it was the “culture” between NASA and Boeing staff, that created mistrust, Isaacman shared, adding that officials were unprofessional during the situation and worried more about Starliner’s capability than solving the immediate issues.

NASA Associate Administrator Amit Shastri, who was also with Isaacman during the teleconference, said that the U.S. space agency failed Wilmore and Williams.

“They have so much grace and they’re so competent, the two of them. And we failed them. The agency failed them. And even though they won’t, they won’t say that, we have to say that, we have to recognize that our responsibility is to them and to all the crews that are coming and to the crews that (are) about to go fly and … our responsibilities to each other, too. We’re a family,” he said.

Starliner Interactive Timeline