NASA officially classifies the failure of a Boeing Starliner as a maximum level Type A accident – Jalopnik

NASA has officially categorized the 2024 failure of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that left astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months as a Type A accident. This is NASA speak for the maximum failure level a mission can reach, defined as an incident that causes more than $2 million in damage, results in the loss of a vehicle or at least control of it, or fatalities, according to the BBC. This designation means that the space agency now considers the mission a disaster, even though the astronauts regained enough control at the last minute to avoid the worst-case scenario.

To be clear, that scenario would have been really, really bad. Essentially, the thrusters that control the Starliner failed as it approached the ISS. While NASA doesn’t say this outright, it’s at least conceivable that this could have ended in a crash on the station itself. In his press conferenceNASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the failure “reached cost thresholds that exceeded a Type A accident by a factor of more than a hundred.” In other words, hundreds of millions of dollars were at risk; It’s hard to think what that could mean other than the potential loss of the ISS. Yes.

There were also organizational problems: NASA more or less relied on Boeing, which once had an excellent reputation, to solve its technical problems. Isaacman stated that the agency did not want to damage that reputation. It’s safe to say it’s shot pretty well now, and this Type A rating won’t help. Meanwhile, Boeing also gave insufficient control to its own subcontractors. So no one was supervising anyone enough. Who could have guessed that this would end badly?

But rest assured: it gets worse. CNN quotes one NASA insider as saying, “There was yelling in meetings,” and another saying, “There are people who just don’t like each other very much.” Isaacman himself admitted that “disagreements over the crew’s return options deteriorated into unprofessional conduct while the crew remained in orbit.” Welcome to the world’s premier space exploration agency.

If you’re wondering what exactly technically went wrong with the Starliner’s thrusters, you’ll be happy to know that no one knows. That investigation is still ongoing. To be fair, they never found out what went wrong with the thrusters during the tests either, so at least they are consistent! Apparently, “We have no idea what’s wrong with the thing flying the spacecraft” will no longer be a sufficient non-answer. NASA’s new policy will be that things have to work. What an idea.