NASA’s ambitious effort to field a second commercial crew vehicle, the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, has come under intense scrutiny after an independent investigation exposed a cascade of hardware failures and deep-seated organizational issues. The findings, released by NASA on February 20, 2026, have not only shaken confidence in Boeing’s spacecraft but also prompted a sweeping reassessment of the management culture that allowed risk to spiral beyond acceptable limits.
The Starliner Crewed Flight Test (CFT) was launched on June 5, 2024, as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams were set for an eight-to-14-day mission, but what was meant to be a routine certification flight quickly unraveled. Propulsion system problems emerged soon after launch, ultimately stranding the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) for a staggering 93 days. The Starliner returned to Earth autonomously in September 2024, while Wilmore and Williams only made it home in March 2025 aboard a SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon, according to Reuters and Astronomy.
NASA’s investigation centered on four major hardware failures, the most alarming of which was the service module’s reaction control system thrusters. Five thrusters automatically shut down during the spacecraft’s approach to the ISS, briefly depriving Starliner of full control. Through quick thinking and in-flight troubleshooting, controllers managed to recover four thrusters, allowing the spacecraft to dock. However, this incident met the threshold for a Type A mishap—the agency’s most serious classification, reserved for events with the potential for significant loss or damage. As NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman bluntly put it, “We almost did have a really terrible day.”
The technical investigation revealed a series of vulnerabilities compounding the risk. During descent, a crew module thruster failed, eliminating fault tolerance in the system—a situation traced to corrosion caused by carbazic acid formed from propellant and carbon dioxide. Seven of eight helium manifolds in the service module also leaked, attributed to material incompatibility and O-ring sizing issues. Most troubling, Starliner’s propulsion architecture lacked the required two-fault tolerance for deorbit burns—a design flaw present since early development but only recognized shortly before the crewed launch, as detailed by Aerospace Global News.
These technical failures didn’t arise in a vacuum. Earlier test flights had already signaled trouble. The 2019 uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-1 suffered major software errors, resulting in excessive thruster firings and propellant loss. In 2021, oxidizer valve issues forced a scrub of OFT-2, and even the 2022 OFT-2 flight saw three aft thrusters fail. Yet, according to the investigation, these warnings were not fully pursued to their root causes. Instead, anomalies were treated as isolated incidents or accepted without explanation, letting systemic weaknesses persist into the crewed mission.
Beyond hardware, the investigation painted a stark picture of organizational dysfunction. Overlapping authority between NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, the ISS Program, and Boeing created blurred lines of decision-making. Trust between NASA and Boeing eroded amid concerns over selective data sharing and inconsistent transparency. As Isaacman stated at a news conference, “The most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware. It is decision-making and leadership that, if left unchecked, could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight.”
Survey feedback cited in the report described chaotic meetings, unclear roles, and a weakened sense of team effectiveness. The investigation found a cultural mismatch: NASA’s traditional technical conservatism clashed with the commercial model’s greater reliance on provider autonomy. This disconnect was exacerbated by the pressure of more than thirty launch attempts preceding the crewed flight, fostering a sense that Starliner had to launch to maintain two independent US crew transport systems. As one witness told investigators, the atmosphere during key decision points was “probably the ugliest environment that I’ve been in,” with yelling in meetings and safety engineers being berated on muted microphones.
The investigation’s report also highlighted how schedule pressure and program advocacy influenced risk discussions—not just before launch, but during on-orbit troubleshooting and even after the mission. Initially, NASA hesitated to declare the event a Type A mishap, despite the loss of full attitude control and costs exceeding the mishap threshold by over 100 times. Isaacman later acknowledged this was a mistake, saying, “This is just about doing the right thing. This is about getting the record straight.”
The fallout from the Starliner mission has implications far beyond a single spacecraft. With the planned retirement of the Atlas V rocket—Starliner’s current launch vehicle—and limited hardware spares, the program’s future is in question. For now, Elon Musk’s SpaceX remains the only US provider ferrying astronauts to the ISS, having completed 13 crew missions since 2020. NASA and Boeing’s contracts, initially awarded in 2014 and worth billions, were intended to ensure redundancy and competition in crew transport. But as the report makes clear, commercial innovation cannot come at the expense of the unforgiving safety margins demanded by human spaceflight.
NASA and Boeing now face a daunting list of 61 corrective actions before Starliner will be cleared to fly astronauts again. These recommendations span design validation, telemetry upgrades, organizational clarity, and cultural reform. Isaacman stressed that transparency and accountability will be central to restoring confidence. “We returned the crew safely,” he told staff, “but the path we took did not reflect NASA at its best.”
Boeing, for its part, has acknowledged the findings and insisted the program will continue. In a statement, the company said, “Boeing has made substantial progress on corrective actions for technical challenges we encountered and driven significant cultural changes across the team.” The astronauts themselves, Wilmore and Williams, have expressed willingness to fly another Starliner mission “in a heartbeat,” emphasizing that responsibility for errors was shared at all levels.
NASA’s leadership is also taking steps to rebuild its in-house engineering expertise, shifting from a posture of seeking “insight” into contractors’ work toward more hands-on “oversight.” This includes converting contractor positions back to civil servant roles, with the aim of “regaining some lost muscle memory on our engineering skills.” According to Isaacman, NASA will not fly another crew on Starliner “until technical causes are understood and corrected, the propulsion system is fully qualified and appropriate investigation recommendations are implemented.”
The Starliner episode serves as a sharp reminder that the balance between commercial innovation and NASA’s culture of safety is delicate—and that technical discipline and program culture must advance together if the United States is to maintain assured access to low Earth orbit. For all involved, the lessons of the past two years are clear: accountability, transparency, and an unwavering commitment to safety must guide the next chapter of American human spaceflight.