Invoking the designation also ensures an independent investigation detached from the teams involved in the incident itself, according to retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, chair of the safety panel. “We just, I think, are advocates of safety investigation best practices, and that clearly is one of the top best practices,” Helms said.
Another member of the safety panel, Mark Sirangelo, said NASA should formally declare mishaps and close calls as soon as possible. “It allows for the investigative team to be starting to be formed a lot sooner, which makes them more effective and makes the results quicker for everyone,” Sirangelo said.
In the case of last year’s Starliner test flight, NASA’s decision not to declare a mishap or close call created confusion within the agency, safety officials said.
A few weeks into the Starliner test flight last year, the manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, Steve Stich, told reporters the agency’s plan was “to continue to return [the astronauts] on Starliner and return them home at the right time.” Mark Nappi, then Boeing’s Starliner program manager, regularly appeared to downplay the seriousness of the thruster issues during press conferences throughout Starliner’s nearly three-month mission.
“Specifically, there’s a significant difference, philosophically, between we will work toward proving the Starliner is safe for crew return, versus a philosophy of Starliner is no-go for return, and the primary path is on an alternate vehicle, such as Dragon or Soyuz, unless and until we learn how to ensure the on-orbit failures won’t recur on entry with the Starliner,” Precourt said.
“The latter would have been the more appropriate direction,” he said. “However, there were many stakeholders that believed the direction was the former approach. This ambiguity continued throughout the summer months, while engineers and managers pursued multiple test protocols in the Starliner propulsion systems, undoubtedly affecting the workforce.”
After months of testing and analysis, NASA officials were unsure if the thruster problems would recur on Starliner’s flight home. They decided in August 2024 to return the spacecraft to the ground without the astronauts, and the capsule safely landed in New Mexico the following month. The next Starliner flight will carry only cargo to the ISS.
The safety panel recommended that NASA review its criteria and processes to ensure the language is “unambiguous” in requiring the agency to declare an in-flight mishap or a high-visibility close call for any event involving NASA personnel “that leads to an impact on crew or spacecraft safety.”