NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Releases 2025 Annual Report 

The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), which advises NASA and Congress on safety matters, has released its 2025 annual report on NASA’s performance and challenges.

While recognizing NASA’s security accomplishments, the panel cautioned that the agency’s greatest challenges come from interconnected factors – workforce, acquisitions, technical authority, budgets and the increasing complexity of human spaceflight – requiring sustained attention as missions become more ambitious.

“Independent assessments like this will make NASA better,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “The panel’s report highlights areas where we need to raise the bar, from how we structure oversight and manage embedded risks to how we report anomalies and learn from them. We are fully committed to transparency. This is how we protect crews, earn trust, and keep the Artemis lunar campaign and our transition to a commercial presence in low Earth orbit on a safe and sustainable path.”

This year’s report covered the following topics:

• strategic vision and governance
• Moon to Mars Program
• future American presence in low Earth orbit
• health and medical risks linked to human spaceflight
• NASA X-59 low-boom flight demonstrator

The panel noted progress in preparing Artemis II and improving monitoring through the Moon to Mars Program Office, as well as safe operations of the International Space Station, advances in astronaut health research and the first flight of the low-boom X-59 demonstrator. At the same time, it highlighted significant challenges, including Artemis III’s high-risk posture, lessons learned from Boeing’s Starliner test, space station deorbit planning, and systemic concerns.

To meet these new challenges, the panel recommends that NASA:

• Realign its governance of capacity acquisition strategies related to human spaceflight across the agency.
• Reexamine the mission objectives and system architecture for Artemis III and subsequent missions to establish a more balanced approach to risk.
• Require timely reporting of a high visibility accident or close incident.

“We were already on the path to implementing change and this report only adds urgency,” Isaacman added. “This means recalibrating our acquisition strategy – including a build versus buy versus service buy approach – restoring core competencies through initiatives such as converting contractors to civil service roles and increasing our launch cadence. We are also aligning our long-term vision for the agency and industry to guide priorities. This includes clarifying our plans for the Artemis architecture and accelerating human landing system proposals to preserve schedule margin. We We have already shown what transparency and now accountability looks like – through the Boeing Starliner Program Investigation Team Report, we have acknowledged our mistakes, classified the mission as a Type A incident and initiated corrective actions to ensure they never happen again. These measures, along with the documentation of health and medical risks and the overhaul and acceleration of programs like X-59, reflect our commitment to living up to the expectations of the world’s most accomplished space agency.

On February 19, Isaacman held a press conference to present the agency’s findings from the crewed flight test of the Starliner. Earlier this month, he outlined a new workforce plan aimed at strengthening NASA’s core competencies for technical, engineering and operational excellence. The agency is also working with its two human landing systems industry suppliers to streamline and accelerate America’s return to the surface of the Moon by 2028.

“The panel commends NASA for its impressive efforts in 2025 to strategically improve the agency’s risk management posture despite turbulence in the agency’s organizational environment,” said retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan J. Helms, ASAP president. “We most sincerely thank NASA’s leadership and staff for their passionate dedication to space exploration and their unwavering commitment to the safe pursuit of the nation’s noble goals, to the great benefit of the future of humanity.”

The annual report is based on the committee’s quarterly investigative and public meetings held in 2025; direct observations of NASA operations and decision-making; discussions with NASA management, employees, and contractors; and the experiences of the panel members.

Congress created this group in 1968 to provide advice and make recommendations to the NASA Administrator on safety issues after the 1967 Apollo 1 fire that claimed the lives of three American astronauts.

To learn more about ASAP and view annual reports, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/asap

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Bethany Stevens/Elizabeth Shaw
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.shaw@nasa.gov