NASA announced that the malfunction that led to two astronauts remaining on the International Space Station for approximately nine months longer than planned is considered an extremely serious accident.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the agency explained that due to the spacecraft’s loss of maneuverability during the crew’s approach to the station, in addition to the resulting financial losses, NASA classified the test flight as a “Class A accident.”
Category A accidents are NASA’s most serious classification. The agency stated: “While there were no casualties and mission control was restored prior to docking, this higher-level classification designation acknowledges the potential for a major accident.”
American astronauts Sonny Williams and Barry Wilmore arrived at the International Space Station in early June 2024 on the first manned test flight of Boeing’s Starliner vehicle. They were scheduled to stay in space for only one week, but the many technical problems facing the vehicle led to them remaining stranded.
Ultimately, they returned to Earth nine months later on another spacecraft. The statement noted that an independent investigation found that a combination of “hardware malfunctions, qualification gaps, and piloting errors” caused “hazardous conditions inconsistent with NASA’s human spaceflight safety standards,” and the investigation is still ongoing to determine the technical causes in detail.
