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NASA connected Thursday (February 19, 2026) released a sweeping study connected Boeing’s botched Starliner mission that near 2 astronauts stuck connected the International Space Station for astir a year, detailing connection breakdowns and “unprofessional behavior” arsenic the bureau and its longtime contractor struggled to hold connected how to safely instrumentality the unit to Earth.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman ripped into Boeing and agency enactment for their handling of the Starliner ngo during a short-notice quality league that coincided with the merchandise of a 300-page study detailing method and oversight failures down the spacecraft’s archetypal crewed mission, which concluded past year.
“Starliner has plan and engineering deficiencies that indispensable beryllium corrected, but the astir troubling nonaccomplishment revealed by this probe is not hardware,” Isaacman wrote successful a missive to NASA employees, which helium posted successful afloat connected X.
“It is determination making and enactment that, if near unchecked, could make a civilization incompatible with quality spaceflight,” helium added, echoing findings successful the report’s “cultural and organizational” section.
Starliner’s method failures kept NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams connected the ISS for 9 months successful a high-stakes trial ngo initially planned to past astir a week.
On Earth, according to the report, Boeing and NASA officials sparred successful tense meetings connected however champion to bring the unit home, with “unprofessional behavior” and yelling matches that countered the agency’s norms of steadfast method statement and situation management.
The report, completed successful November and citing interviews with unnamed NASA officials, said “numerous interviewees mentioned defensive, unhealthy, contentious meetings during method disagreements aboriginal successful the mission.”
“There was yelling successful meetings. It was emotionally charged and unproductive,” 1 authoritative reported. “It was astir apt the ugliest situation that I’ve been in,” different said.
“There wasn’t a wide way for struggle solution betwixt the teams. That led to a lot of frayed relationships and emotions,” said another.
The study besides describes a “fragile concern dynamic” betwixt NASA and Boeing, successful which bureau officials’ concerns that Boeing could driblet retired of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program implicit engineering challenges and bureau standards influenced officials’ decision-making connected captious ngo issues.
“This reluctance to challenge Boeing’s interpretations and nonaccomplishment to enactment connected engineering concerns has contributed to hazard acceptance and a fragile concern dynamic.”
Boeing said successful a connection that it was “grateful to NASA for its thorough probe and the accidental to lend to it.” The company, it added, has made advancement connected fixing Starliner’s method issues and has made organizational changes.
NASA retroactively classified the Starliner ngo arsenic a “Type A” mishap, the agency’s astir terrible class of ngo failure, triggered by factors specified arsenic harm to a spacecraft exceeding $2 cardinal oregon a unit member’s decease oregon imperishable disability.
Boeing has spent tens of millions of dollars connected efforts to hole Starliner pursuing the mission, of astir $2 cardinal successful charges the institution has taken truthful acold connected the programme since 2016.
The full worth of Boeing’s NASA declaration since its 2014 grant has accrued by astir $300 cardinal to $4.5 billion, owed to improvement setbacks and added testing, with immoderate $2.2 cardinal of the total magnitude paid to Boeing truthful far.
But NASA past twelvemonth reduced the contract’s full worth to $3.7 cardinal and chopped the fig of planned Starliner flights from six to four, as Boeing’s engineering struggles inch person to 2030, the planned status of the ISS.
Wilmore and Williams, some seasoned trial pilots and astronauts, safely returned to Earth past twelvemonth connected a SpaceX trade aft their faulty Starliner capsule returned empty.
“First and foremost, we’re trying to nonstop a connection astir what is the close and incorrect mode to grip situations similar this, truthful that they bash not recur,” Isaacman told reporters.
The study besides lists 4 antecedently known method anomalies that led to mission-failure status, including Starliner’s propulsion strategy glitches that analyzable its quality to dock with the ISS successful the archetypal hours of its mission.
