Boeing’s Starliner problems may be worse than we thought

Enlarge / A close-up view of the Starliner capsule with its service module immediately beneath it. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann )

On Friday, officials from NASA and Boeing held a teleconference with reporters to discuss issues related to the Starliner spacecraft's performance during an orbital test flight in December.

Although an independent review team remains in the midst of an investigation that will not conclude until the end of February, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he convened the call in the "interest of transparency."

The call followed an explosive revelation on Thursday at a meeting of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, that the Starliner spacecraft encountered a second major software issue that could have resulted in a total loss of the vehicle. At the outset of the media call, Bridenstine acknowledged that Starliner's flight had "a lot of anomalies." The agency published a summary here. At this point, it seems that NASA and Boeing do not yet know what they don't know about the problems, and it will take some time to sort all of this out.

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