NASA has officially categorized the 2024 failure of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which stranded astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months, as a Type A mishap. This is NASA-speak for the maximum level of failure a mission can reach, defined as an incident that causes over $2 million in damage, results in the loss of a vehicle or at least control over it, or any fatalities, per the BBC. This designation signifies that the space agency now views the mission as a disaster, even if the astronauts regained enough control at the last minute to prevent the worst-case scenario.
To be clear: that scenario would have been really, really bad. Essentially, the thrusters that control the Starliner failed on approach to the ISS. While NASA doesn't outright say this, it is at least conceivable that could have ended in a crash into the station itself. In his press conference, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that the failure reached "cost thresholds exceeding a Type A mishap by a factor of over a hundred." In other words, hundreds of millions of dollars were at risk; hard to think what that could mean other than the potential loss of the ISS.
www.jalopnik.com
