NASA announces leadership shakeup in wake of Boeing Starliner criticism

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Feb 26, 2026

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A week after the NASA Administrator promised consequences for the agency’s mishandling of the Boeing Starliner saga, two key leaders of its Commercial Crew Program are being replaced.

NASA said that Ken Bowersox, who announced his retirement Wednesday, will be stepping down from his role as associate administrator of Space Operations Mission Directorate as of March 6.

Steve Stich will also no longer be the program manager of the Commercial Crew Program, although NASA did not mention if Stich would be leaving the agency or taking on another role.

The Space Operations Mission Directorate oversees commercial crew as well as the International Space Station, human research, launch services and human spaceflight capabilities among other programs.

Bowersox’s replacement will be Joel Montalbano, who has been most recently been a deputy under Bowersox and before that the program manager of the International Space Station. Stich’s replacement will be Dana Hutcherson, who has been Stich’s deputy in the Commercial Crew Program. Both will be installed as acting leaders for their new roles.

“Strong leadership is essential to advancing NASA’s mission, and Joel Montalbano and Dana Hutcherson are exceptionally well-qualified to serve in these acting roles,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “Their experience and commitment will help ensure we deliver on the President’s National Space Policy, maintain American leadership in low Earth orbit, and build the capabilities required to achieve the near-impossible beyond it.”

Both Bowersox and Stich had been key representatives in NASA’s efforts to get Starliner up to speed with fellow commercial crew provider SpaceX.

But Starliner’s most recent mission, the Crewed Flight Test that launched from Cape Canaveral in June 2024, ended in what NASA recently classified as a “Type A” mishap, which put it on the same level as the Space Shuttle Challenge and Columbia disasters.

While “Type A” simply means it rose above a damage threshold of $2 million, the mission did leave its two astronauts in a dangerous situation.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were flying the CFT mission with plans to stay on board the station for as little as eight days, but ended up staying for nearly 10 months using the station as a “safe haven” after the Starliner spacecraft suffered failed thrusters and helium leaks on its propulsion system.

NASA elected to send Starliner home without crew a few months later, and kept Wilmore and Williams on board the station until their ride home, the Space Crew-9 mission, made it to the station.

An independent review of the mission called NASA and Boeing leadership out, citing several failures along the way that jeopardized crew safety.

NASA has not given up on Starliner, but Isaacman said it won’t fly again with crew on board until the agency is satisfied with its safety.

An uncrewed mission of Starliner is still on NASA’s launch calendar to fly no earlier than April for a trip with just cargo to the space station. Boeing has put into place several fixes as it tries to get the vehicle certified for what is already a reduced number of rotational crew missions before the space station is decommissioned.

Both SpaceX and Boeing had originally won contracts in 2014 to provide ferry service to NASA astronauts with launches from the U.S. and end reliance on Russia, which became the sole provider when the Space Shuttle Program ended in 2011.

SpaceX was the first to launch with crew in 2020 and has since flown its fleet of Crew Dragon spacecraft 20 time, bringing 78 humans to and from space. That includes the most recent mission, Crew-12, which launched from Cape Canaveral earlier this month.

Starliner suffered a series of hardware, software and mission management delays including an initial uncrewed flight in 2019 that missed its rendezvous with the space station.

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