When Sunita Williams blasted off for a short eight-day trip to the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2024, she never expected her ride home would leave her stranded in the silence of space for nearly a year.
Nasa has now officially admitted that the mission was a catastrophic failure of both engineering and leadership, classifying it as a Type A mishap.
This is the same category of disaster as the 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle tragedy that killed Indian-born astronaut Kalpana Chawla.
In a scathing 311-page report released on February 19, 2026, Nasa Administrator Jared Isaacman slammed the agency and Boeing for ignoring safety warnings just to keep the program on track.
HOW DID THE STARLINER MISSION TURN INTO A DISASTER?
The trouble began almost immediately after the June 2024 launch when the spacecraft propulsion system, which generates the thrust needed to fly the rocket, started failing.
As Williams and Wilmore approached the space station, five thrusters, or mini-engines, died, and helium leaks threatened the integrity of the vehicle.
While the astronauts managed to dock safely, the technical rot was deep. Investigators found that Nasa managers had allowed schedule pressure to override safety protocols, creating a culture of mistrust.
Instead of the planned week-long mission, the duo was forced to watch their empty Starliner capsule return to Earth without them in September 2024, finally hitching a ride back home on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft in March 2025.
WHAT IS A TYPE A MISHAP?
In a move that sends shockwaves through the aerospace industry, Nasa has formally classified this mission as a Type A mishap.
This is the most serious label the agency can give to an accident, the same category used for the tragic Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters.
While Williams and Wilmore returned safely, a Type A designation means the mission involved over $2 million in damages or a total loss of aircraft control.
In this case, Isaacman revealed the financial loss exceeded that threshold by a factor of 100, totalling at least $200 million. By acknowledging this as a top-tier failure, Nasa is finally taking extreme ownership of the mistakes that put two human lives at risk.
HOW DOES THIS COMPARE TO THE KALPANA CHAWLA DISASTER?
By declaring the Boeing Starliner mission a Type A mishap, Nasa is placing its failure in the same grim category as the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
In 2003, Kalpana Chawla and six other crew members perished when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
That tragedy was also blamed on a broken safety culture where engineers felt their concerns about foam shedding were ignored by management.
In the Starliner report, investigators found haunting similarities, noting that Nasa again permitted certain programmatic objectives to influence engineering and operational decisions, effectively repeating the cultural breakdowns that led to the loss of Chawla and her crew.
