from the department-of-Boeing-used-to-be-good... dept.
NASA releases "Starliner Propulsion System Anomalies during the Crewed Flight Test"
To quote Cheryl Warner, NASA News Chief, "At a news conference on Thursday, NASA released a report of findings from the Program Investigation Team examining the Boeing CST-100 Starliner Crewed Flight Test as part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program."
The direct link to the redacted report is:
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/nasa-report-with-redactions-021926.pdf?emrc=76e561
Redacted? "For the full report, which includes redactions in coordination with our commercial partner to protect proprietary and privacy-sensitive material is available online."
Its 311 pages and they're not providing a summary so it is likely to be extremely juicy and spicy, as NASA historically doesn't water down press releases for many other reasons. So I know what I'll be reading with breakfast tea later this morning.
So the facts are above. My separate opinions below.
I'd give it a different take than the report as I've read it so far; they designed a semi-disposable cost-reduced capsule but space projects ALWAYS take longer so if backflowing oxidizer will inevitably very slowly eat the o-rings in the helium manifold, well, its going to sit around a long time before launching so its going to eat thru, thats the nature of space program delays. Or propellant residue plus CO2 will rot out thruster nozzles given enough time, and space programs being space programs they will indeed be given time to sit around and slowly rot. They still are not sure about the RCS thrusters jamming but it seems likely to be a lack of ground testing during R+D; teflon is like a viscous liquid over a long time while under stress, key being over a long time.
The "Hardware Longevity and Sparing Concerns" section hints to me that the program is about to be cancelled if it doesn't cancel itself first. Reads like they're not permitted under the terms of the investigation to recommend program shutdown but they wanted to recommend it anyway.
The report follows that with numerous identified management failures at NASA and Boeing. This is the new Boeing, which is no longer competent, so "NASA's hands-off contract approach limited insight" precisely when Boeing needed adult supervision as they've downsized, outsourced, refused to recruit, or otherwise eliminated their competent adults for various reasons over the years. But who knows, what do y'all think?
NASA Admits Starliner Failures as It Preps for March Launch of Artemis 2
The agency's administrator promises transparency and accountability:
NASA aims to launch its next crewed moon mission, Artemis II, as soon as March 6, after a key fueling test showed major progress and only minor issues.
[...] The announcement of the potential Artemis II launch date, NASA's first astronaut-led moon mission since 1972, comes a day after the agency admitted to gross failures in the Boeing Starliner test flight that involved astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams in 2024. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman delivered scathing remarks about the risk to human safety during a Thursday news conference about the investigation, which relabeled the Starliner mission as a "Type-A mishap." That designation is the most serious level of incident short of a fatal accident.
With Artemis II set to become the first human test flight of the Orion spaceship, there are some glaring parallels, especially given concerns about the spacecraft's heat shield. Though the lunar mission uses a different rocket and spacecraft from Boeing's long-troubled Starliner, leaders stressed that the mishap investigation must reshape how NASA manages all human spaceflight. The same cultural and management failures could surface in any program if left unchecked, said NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya.
"We failed them," he said, referring to Wilmore and Williams, who both retired after their 10-day test flight turned into nine months at the International Space Station. "Even though they won't say that, we have to say that."
Isaacman outlined how the agency mishandled the 2024 mission, citing serious failures in NASA's own leadership and decision-making. NASA has released its 300-page Starliner report, days ahead of plans to present the findings to Congress.
NASA and Boeing still don't fully understand why thrusters in both the service module — which carries engines and fuel — and the capsule malfunctioned. The crewed mission had a temporary loss of steering during its approach to the station and another propulsion failure during its empty return, though that wasn't made public at the time. The two astronauts were not on board for that, coming home instead in a SpaceX Crew Dragon months later.
In a statement released Thursday, Boeing said it had made substantial progress on technical repairs since the flight and was working on cultural changes across its team as well.
"NASA's report will reinforce our ongoing efforts to strengthen our work, and the work of all Commercial Crew Partners, in support of mission and crew safety, which is and must always be our highest priority," the company said.
Lastest Update:
[updated by BBC news 18:27UTC 12 Feb - Artemis 2 will be removed from the launch pad to investigate further problem(s) discovered overnight--JR]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 22, @07:25PM (3 children)
No matter what happens, this will make for great space drama in years to come.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 23, @03:31AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by PiMuNu on Monday February 23, @09:45AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13_(film) [wikipedia.org]
> In total, the film grossed over $355 million worldwide during its theatrical releases and becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 1995.
Not enough to pay for even one Artemis mission, best find a different income stream.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rich on Monday February 23, @11:19AM
NASA could insist that CEO and CFO are launched as a "trustbuilding measure", and then they could allow the shareholder board to sell live broadcast and film rights for the case anything goes wrong. Now that would be proper space drama.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday February 23, @02:46PM
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/nasa-says-it-needs-to-haul-the-artemis-ii-rocket-back-to-the-hangar-for-repairs/ [arstechnica.com]
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Monday February 23, @02:50PM
Artemis will never land people on the moon.
The project was designed to enrich the space industrial complex while continuously re-playing the 'ol Lucy/Charlie Brown football kick as far achieving any tangible results. They walk the knifes edge of producing the bare minimum of "successes" to keep the program funded for many years beyond the original timeline, while never actually reaching the program's goal. Besides, NASA claims the technology that got us to the moon in the 60's was "lost", so it's questionable whether the goal is even (ever was?) possible.
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Monday February 23, @03:34PM
They're two programs with two different problems. As detailed in my submission for Starliner, "In the Old Days" NASA hired the missile boys and the knew what they were doing WRT standing something up for launch then wait a couple years before firing it, but the noobs seem to have no idea how to use o-rings and gaskets and actuators that don't rot due to material compatibility issues. I think if they built it and launched it immediately the starliner mission would have been a success or at least they'd have run into different problems. They were told to ship a vehicle with a 30 day shelf life and they shipped a darn good vehicle with a 30 day shelf life, its just marketing and management let it sit on the shelf until it rotted and parts started to fail. Its a mildly impressive ship although I wouldn't want to fly a "restored antique" or similar LOL.
The Artemis project is skipping all the testing so they almost had a heat shield failure on the first flight. The reentry profile is wild they skip in and out causing weird thermal shocks until parts shatter and fall off in flight, unless theres some classified ICBM profile they're copying that we don't officially know about, this has never been tried. So they almost torched a spacecraft on the first try and holy shit they are putting humans on the second try in a couple weeks. Artemis has severe, although different, management failures and they're going to kill astronauts with that thing. The Artemis management problem is they can't decide if they're redoing some kids science fair project of erupting volcano for the n-th time or if they're running an early stage research project on some creative thinking "improvements", but regardless of lack of leadership or direction they're putting people on top of it and hoping for the best.
Starliner failed because they plain old don't know how to do it, or more charitably, they did a great job implementing something else. Artemis will fail because they have no coherent goal beyond throw some ideas against the wall, see what sticks, then "launch and pray".
If you remember "The A Team" from the 1980s both projects resemble it in different ways; if the team built the wrong vehicle for a job (say, a boat when they needed a car) no matter how good of a job they did the mission overall will fail. As for the other situation, what if the guy with the cigar who loves it when a plan comes together just up and quit, so the other folks just did whatever damn thing they wanted when they wanted, the odds of what they build working are not so good. Mr T had it right "I pity the fool" who flies on either spacecraft. Well enough watching daytime TV commercials while sipping my morning tea.