NASA Safety Panel Praises NASA’s Response To Starliner CFT Anomalies

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel is praising NASA for how it dealt with decision-making when Boeing’s Starliner Crew Flight Test experienced several anomalies this summer. Ultimately NASA decided to return Starliner to Earth empty instead of with the two crew members who were aboard when it launched. ASAP’s interest is particularly in NASA’s safety culture and found it to be an inclusive process in this case.

ASAP was created by  Congress following the 1967 tragedy that killed the three-person crew of the first Apollo mission — Virgil “Gus Grissom,” Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.  It is the only NASA advisory panel that reports both to the NASA Administrator and Congress.

In a public briefing today following its third quarter 2024 review of safety at the agency, ASAP chair Lt. Gen. Susan Helms (Ret.), a former astronaut, noted that ASAP members were present during NASA’s Starliner deliberations and they observed a “healthy safety culture” that allowed diverse views to be heard.

“Although it was a difficult and unprecedented situation, we observed a highly professional, extremely hard-working NASA team that carefully and thoughtfully postured themselves to hear all views, review all data, perform all reasonable tests to assess risk and reduce uncertainty as much as feasible, and then to acknowledge mission risk in transparent decision forums.

“This was not an easy process, as we personally observed throughout the summer months, working through complex challenges with many voices and a lot of uncertainty. … NASA clearly demonstrated the attributes of a healthy safety culture … and we applaud NASA for ensuring that their cultural approach led to the appropriate risk-managed outcomes.” — Susan Helms

ASAP member Kent Rominger, another former NASA astronaut, gave NASA kudos as well for operating in an “inclusive manner. … The fact that many people were willing to speak up was telling in itself and representative of a health safety culture.”

NASA’s safety culture was sharply criticized after the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger and 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia tragedies and the agency has made many changes since.

Rominger went further, congratulating NASA and Boeing teams for working “tirelessly” to do testing and obtain the data necessary for that decision-making, and the International Space Station program and SpaceX for providing “operational flexibility” as the process unfolded. “We are very much looking forward to getting the results of the final investigations and lessons learned.”

He went on to talk about SpaceX’s record-breaking flight rate and several issues that have arisen in the past several months — a launch failure, a landing failure, and a second-stage engine anomaly that caused the stage to splashdown in the ocean outside its intended coordinates.

“It’s apparent that operating safely requires significant attention to detail as hardware ages and the pace of operations increases.  With the increased pace of Falcon 9 operations, West Coast recoveries, and the ongoing large Starship development program, both NASA and SpaceX need to maintain focus on safe Crew Dragon operations and not take any quote normal operations for granted. They will also have to guard against letting a high pace of operations from clouding their judgment to ensure the appropriate level of attention to detail and appropriate time and resources are dedicated to thoroughly understand root cause and implement corrective actions.” — Kent Rominger

Helms said they didn’t have a chance to get an update on the ISS program during this quarterly review, but will do so in November.  They were generally positive about progress on the Artemis program including NASA finding the root cause of the unexpected char loss on the Orion heat shield during the Artemis I mission two years ago. NASA has not publicly revealed what that root cause is and apparently they haven’t told ASAP either. Bill Bray said NASA would report out later this year and the panel “is certainly looking forward to hearing the outcome of this issue resolution as well as next steps going forward.”

Paul Hill and Mark Sirangelo expressed concerns about planning for the transition from the ISS to commercial space stations, especially the budget challenges of operating ISS and supporting commercial low Earth orbit (LEO) destinations at the same time.  Hill noted that NASA is having internal discussions about whether “continuous human presence” is needed or only “continuous capability, whether continuously occupied or not.”

NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy raised this issue at the International Astronautical Congress last week, rhetorically asking what continuous human presence in LEO means — “continuous heartbeat” or “continuous capability.”  She said the agency hasn’t decided on the answer to that question yet.

ASAP didn’t offer an opinion, but worries NASA isn’t paying sufficient attention to whether critical skills will be retained within the agency to be able to assess and manage risks in a commercial space station environment. If NASA has a partnership with a commercial provider and it includes international partners like the ISS does, “the panel foresees legal and protocol complications for a commercial partner who integrates risk, which then affects NASA and international partner astronauts and assets.”

Helms welcomed a new member to the panel, Katharina McFarland, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition. Former astronaut Charlie Precourt also joined recently. The ASAP website is a bit out of date. The current membership is:

Lt Col. Susan Helms – Chair

Mr. William Bray

Dr. Amy Donahue

Mr. Paul Hill

Katharina McFarland

Charles Precourt

Mr. Kent Rominger

Dr. Mark Sirangelo

Dr. Richard Williams