Invoking the designation also ensures an independent investigation detached from the teams involved in the incident itself, according to retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, chair of the safety panel. \u201cWe just, I think, are advocates of safety investigation best practices, and that clearly is one of the top best practices,\u201d Helms said.<\/p>\n
Another member of the safety panel, Mark Sirangelo, said NASA should formally declare mishaps and close calls as soon as possible. \u201cIt allows for the investigative team to be starting to be formed a lot sooner, which makes them more effective and makes the results quicker for everyone,\u201d Sirangelo said.<\/p>\n
In the case of last year\u2019s Starliner test flight, NASA\u2019s decision not to declare a mishap or close call created confusion within the agency, safety officials said.<\/p>\n
A few weeks into the Starliner test flight last year, the manager of NASA\u2019s Commercial Crew Program, Steve Stich, told reporters the agency\u2019s plan was \u201cto continue to return [the astronauts] on Starliner and return them home at the right time.\u201d Mark Nappi, then Boeing\u2019s Starliner program manager, regularly appeared to downplay<\/a> the seriousness of the thruster issues during press conferences throughout Starliner\u2019s nearly three-month mission.<\/p>\n \u201cSpecifically, there\u2019s a significant difference, philosophically, between we will work toward proving the Starliner is safe for crew return, versus a philosophy of Starliner is no-go for return, and the primary path is on an alternate vehicle, such as Dragon or Soyuz, unless and until we learn how to ensure the on-orbit failures won\u2019t recur on entry with the Starliner,\u201d Precourt said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe latter would have been the more appropriate direction,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, there were many stakeholders that believed the direction was the former approach. This ambiguity continued throughout the summer months, while engineers and managers pursued multiple test protocols in the Starliner propulsion systems, undoubtedly affecting the workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n After months of testing and analysis, NASA officials were unsure if the thruster problems would recur on Starliner\u2019s flight home. They decided in August 2024 to return the spacecraft to the ground without the astronauts, and the capsule safely landed in New Mexico the following month. The next Starliner flight will carry only cargo to the ISS<\/a>.<\/p>\n The safety panel recommended that NASA review its criteria and processes to ensure the language is \u201cunambiguous\u201d in requiring the agency to declare an in-flight mishap or a high-visibility close call for any event involving NASA personnel \u201cthat leads to an impact on crew or spacecraft safety.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Invoking the designation also ensures an independent investigation detached from the teams involved in the incident itself, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-205779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}