NASA says Boeing, leadership to blame for Starliner

"NASA's 311-page report [PDF] on the issue references known technical issues with Starliner, but puts the mission failure, which NASA has declared a type-A mishap, [PDF] down to organizational issues. Problems with the craft itself included inadequate testing of Starliner's propulsion system, low telemetry rates, and a lack of onboard data storage during two prior orbital flight tests resulting in insufficient flight data to properly diagnose anomalies, which in turn led to unexplained anomaly acceptance without root cause resolution."

"NASA administrator Jared Isaacman copped to leadership failures across the org during a press conference on Thursday, explaining that while there were definitely technical issues with Starliner during the manned flight that left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stranded on the International Space Station for months, those technical issues only arose because of leadership and oversight failures. "We returned the crew safely, but the path we took did not reflect NASA at our best," Isaacman said."

A 311-page investigation attributes the mission mishap primarily to organizational failures rather than solely to unresolved technical root causes. Identified technical deficiencies included inadequate propulsion-system testing, low telemetry rates, and lack of onboard data storage during prior orbital tests, which produced insufficient flight data to diagnose anomalies and enabled anomaly acceptance without root-cause resolution. Programmatic and cultural problems included limited insight into subcontractor-level data, schedule pressure that constrained risk reduction, and a Commercial Crew Program shared-accountability model that was poorly understood and inconsistently applied. Leadership and oversight lapses allowed these conditions, and crew and flight-controller decisions ensured safe crew return.

Read at Theregister