“Black zones” was astronaut Butch Wilmore’s informal phrase for parts of a launch trajectory where certain failures could leave a crew unable to survive. He used it before Boeing’s first crewed Starliner flight; it is not an official technical term, and his claim that Starliner had no such zones was not a NASA safety finding. Starliner’s test flight later faced propulsion anomalies, and NASA chose to return the spacecraft without its crew.
What are “black zones” in a launch?
In a preflight interview reported by Futurism on May 4, 2024, Wilmore described trajectory segments where “specific failures” could make survival impossible. Futurism reported that he told Fox Weather: “There were many what we call the term ‘black zones,’ where if you had specific failures in certain parts of the trajectory as you’re getting into orbit, you could not survive.” He added: “This spacecraft does not have those.”
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That wording conveys a general point about launch risk, not a precise engineering category. As a spacecraft climbs toward orbit, its speed, altitude, position, and available options change. A failure at one point may leave different abort, navigation, or recovery options than the same failure at another. The available sources do not provide a trajectory diagram, define exact boundaries for “black zones,” or establish that Starliner eliminated every potentially unsurvivable failure scenario.
What did NASA plan to test on Starliner?
NASA’s May 2024 mission overview described the crewed flight as a test of the spacecraft and its systems, not as a blanket guarantee against every possible failure. Planned objectives included evaluating manual-abort scenarios, manual and automated navigation, life support, and the landing system. Those functions and tests are distinct from Wilmore’s informal description of trajectory risk.
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Williams also discussed Starliner’s abort capability before the flight, according to Futurism’s account. Such preflight comments should be read as astronaut statements about the vehicle, not as certification findings or proof that every failure along the ascent could be survived.
What happened on Starliner’s crewed test flight?
NASA says Starliner launched with Wilmore and Suni Williams on June 5, 2024. The mission was initially planned to last eight to 14 days, but propulsion anomalies extended it to 93 days. NASA described uncertainty about propulsion performance and, in August 2024, said the lack of expert concurrence meant the situation did not meet agency safety and performance requirements for returning the astronauts aboard Starliner.
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NASA therefore returned Starliner to Earth without its crew in September 2024. Wilmore and Williams returned to Earth aboard SpaceX Crew-9 in March 2025. The decision concerned the risks NASA assessed after the anomalies; the available sources do not connect those anomalies to Wilmore’s earlier “black zones” remarks.
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What did NASA’s later investigation find?
In a February 19, 2026 release, NASA summarized its Starliner Crew Flight Test investigation as finding combined hardware failures, qualification gaps, leadership missteps, and cultural breakdowns. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that the agency’s objective of having two providers capable of transporting astronauts to and from orbit had influenced engineering and operational decisions, particularly during and after the mission.
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NASA said technical root-cause work continues. Its release summarizes the investigation, while the complete report is available with redactions. The findings put the flight’s propulsion problems and NASA’s operational choices in context, but they do not retroactively turn “black zones” into an official term or substantiate Wilmore’s preflight assertion that Starliner had none.
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