NASA Releases Report on Starliner Crewed Flight Test Investigation
At a press conference Thursday, NASA released a report on the findings of the program’s investigation team examining the crewed flight test of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
“The Boeing Starliner spacecraft has faced challenges throughout its uncrewed and most recent crewed missions. While Boeing was building Starliner, NASA accepted it and launched two astronauts into space. The technical difficulties encountered during docking with the International Space Station were very evident,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
“To undertake world-changing missions, we must be transparent about our successes and failures. We must own our mistakes and ensure that they never happen again. Beyond technical matters, it is clear that NASA has enabled overarching programmatic goals of having two providers capable of transporting astronauts to and from orbit, influencing technical and operational decisions, particularly during and immediately after the mission. We are correcting those mistakes. Today, We are officially declaring a Type A accident and ensuring executive accountability so that situations like this are never avoided. We look forward to working with Boeing as both organizations implement corrective actions and only return Starliner to flight when it is ready.
Starliner launched on June 5, 2024 for its first crewed test flight to the International Space Station. Originally planned as an eight-to-14-day mission, the flight was extended to 93 days after propulsion system anomalies were identified while the spacecraft was in orbit. After reviewing flight data and conducting ground tests at the White Sands Test Center, NASA decided to return the spacecraft without NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Starliner returned from the space station in September 2024 and landed at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. Wilmore and Williams then returned safely to Earth aboard SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission in March 2025.
In February 2025, NASA commissioned an independent Program Investigation Team to investigate the technical, organizational, and cultural contributors to the test flight problems.
This report was completed in November 2025. NASA and Boeing have been working together since Starliner’s return 18 months ago to identify and resolve challenges encountered during the mission, and technical work on root causes continues.
Investigators identified a combination of hardware failures, qualification deficiencies, leadership missteps and cultural breakdowns that created risk conditions inconsistent with NASA’s human spaceflight safety standards. NASA will accept this as a final report.
Accordingly, NASA is taking corrective action to address the report’s findings, with the goal of ensuring that lessons learned contribute to the crew and mission safety of future Starliner flights and all NASA programs. Due to the spacecraft’s loss of maneuverability as the crew approached the space station and the associated financial damage, NASA classified the test flight as a Type A accident. Although there were no injuries and the mission regained control before docking, this highest-level classification designation recognizes that there was a significant accident risk.
NASA will continue to work closely with Boeing to fully understand and resolve the technical challenges of the Starliner vehicle, while incorporating the survey’s recommendations before flying the next mission.
The full report, which includes redactions in coordination with our business partner to protect proprietary and privacy-sensitive materials, is available online. A 508 compliant version of the report is forthcoming and will be published on this page. NASA will update with an editor’s note when completed.
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/nasa-report-with-redactions-021926.pdf?emrc=76e561
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Bethany Stevens / Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov
