A scathing report by NASA revealed that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were once “stranded” in space, came closer to catastrophe due to technical issues with the spacecraft.
The probe report called it a fatal "Type A mishap," making it equivalent to the two fatal Space Shuttle disasters in 1986 and 2003.
Notably, the scathing report comes as the space agency prepares to deploy four astronauts on a mission to loop around the moon that has experimented flying only once, that too without humans on board.
A senior NASA official stated about the Starliner incident: "We almost did have a really terrible day."
The Starliner capsule was on its first crewed test flight to the International Space Station in June 2024, where it met some technical difficulties.
However, on boarded astronauts Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams managed to restart the propulsion system and manually dock with the ISS.
The new NASA chief, Jared Isaacman, told, "Had different decisions been made, had thrusters not been recovered, or had docking been unsuccessful, the outcome of this mission could have been very, very different."
Originally, the two astronauts were due to spend only 10 days on the ISS; however, their delay extended to nine months.
The report further claimed that the hardware failures were compounded by leadership mistakes and a major breakdown between NASA and Boeing.
Surprisingly, Mr Isaacman said the capsule wasn't ready for a crewed flight.
Though, NASA and Boeing continue to figure out the reason behind that historical failure.
A few months after the incident, Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams announced retirement from the agency.
