Boeing Gets To-Do List With 61 Tasks After Botched NASA Mission

(Bloomberg) -- NASA has begun an extensive probe of its role in Boeing Co.’s CST-100 Starliner program, after a review team found that the agency provided insufficient oversight of software and testing work before a botched voyage to the International Space Station.

Boeing software personnel had too much leeway to approve changes without authorization by the broader Starliner team, NASA Associate Administrator Doug Loverro said on a conference call Friday. Boeing and NASA also didn’t fully understand all potential outcomes for all software code configurations, he said.

“This was a close call,” Loverro said. “We could have lost a spacecraft -- twice -- during this mission, at the beginning and the end.”

NASA’s internal assessment signals tougher oversight for Boeing, which is already under scrutiny from federal prosecutors and aviation regulators for software flaws that contributed to two deadly crashes of its 737 Max plane. The December test flight of the company’s Starliner, which is ultimately meant to ferry astronauts to the space station, was cut short by coding problems.

Immediately after the mission, NASA formed an independent review team to pore over data, the spacecraft and how work and testing was performed before launch. That review has already submitted 61 recommendations to Boeing and the agency, many of which focus on software design, testing, validation and integration.

Now, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will conduct an agency-wide assessment to capture lessons learned from mishaps during the flight, which ended Dec. 22.

Checking Software

“It’s not unusual that you don’t test every logical condition in software, but we clearly recognize that we do need to test every logical condition and cover every logical state that the software could have,” said Loverro, who supervises human spaceflight.

Boeing will incorporate NASA’s recommendations into its plan for moving forward, said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of space and launch for the Chicago-based company.

NASA hired Boeing and Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to develop new launch vehicles to carry astronauts between Earth and the space station. Russia has provided the sole crew transport since the NASA retired the Space Shuttle in 2011. Delays in the commercial crew program have forced the agency to begin talks to purchase another seat from Russia. SpaceX ran a successful demonstration flight without crew to the ISS a year ago and is preparing for a flight with astronauts later this year.

NASA hasn’t decided if Boeing must perform a second test flight without crew. The agency first must review how the company and NASA engineers will address the recommendations, Loverro said. Boeing aims to submit such work by month’s end.

Uncrewed Test

“Do we have enough confidence to say we are ready to fly with a crew, or do we believe that we need another uncrewed test?” Loverro said. “It’s a detailed engineering look that we’re going to have to go ahead and do.”

Boeing has taken a $410 million charge to cover the cost of a second Starliner uncrewed test flight, if required. “There’s not any intent on our part to avoid it or not do it, we stand ready to do it,” Chilton said.

The Starliner suffered a problem with its mission timing software shortly after launch on Dec. 20. That caused the craft to fire thrusters too early, burning too much propellant to allow the craft to continue its flight to the space station and forcing an early return to Earth.

The second flaw involved a valve mapping software issue, which Boeing diagnosed and fixed during flight. Uncorrected, it could have caused the crew and service modules to strike each other as the craft prepared to return to Earth.

To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Bachman in Dallas at jbachman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Case at bcase4@bloomberg.net, Tony Robinson

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