Lots of rumors have swirled about further delays to NASA's commercial crew program, and now the agency's own inspector general has confirmed these setbacks in a new, critical report on progress toward first flights of Boeing's Starliner and SpaceX's Dragon crew capsules.

In the new review, Inspector General Paul Martin writes, "The Commercial Crew Program continues to face multiple challenges that will likely delay the first routine flight carrying NASA astronauts to the ISS until late 2018—more than 3 years after NASA’s original 2015 goal."

Officially, NASA has maintained that it expects to have at least one test launch of a crew vehicle from US soil by the end of 2017 and regular flights by early 2018.

However, Boeing has already acknowledged that an initial crewed Starliner launch will not occur until February 2018 at the earliest. Although SpaceX still maintains a launch is possible in 2017, that was before Thursday's accident on the launch pad involving a static fire test of its Falcon 9 rocket. The new report from the inspector general also predates Thursday's accident, the second major issue in 15 months associated with the Falcon 9 booster SpaceX intends to use as a launcher for the Dragon capsule.

In the report, Martin says that while delays in the commercial crew program from 2015 to 2017 for the initial launches can be explained by funding shortfalls (driven largely by Congress), the same cannot be said of additional delays beyond 2017. "Technical challenges with the contractors’ spacecraft designs are now driving the schedule slippages," the report states.

Boeing, as previously reported, is having difficulties with mass and aeroacoustic issues. Martin also revealed that SpaceX's technical issues have resulted from a change in capsule design to enable a water-based, rather than ground-based, landing and related concerns about the capsule taking on excessive water. Further delays, Martin says, are also possible.

NASA criticized, too

The new report does not spare NASA from criticism, either. As the private companies move through the process of getting NASA to certify their spacecraft as safe for transporting astronauts into orbit, Boeing and SpaceX perform safety reviews of their systems. They then report their findings to NASA on potential hazards and outline plans for addressing those risks. However NASA has not come close to its goal of reviewing those reports in eight weeks.

"We found significant delays in NASA’s evaluation and approval of these hazard reports and related requests for variances from NASA requirements that increase the risk costly redesign work may be required late in development, which could further delay certification," Martin reported. "The contractors told us reviews can take as long as six months. We also found NASA does not monitor the overall timeliness of its safety review process."

As part of the report, Martin recommended that NASA coordinate with Boeing and SpaceX to identify a means of resolving these delays in reviews, but that did not resolve the matter to the inspector general's satisfaction.

Sources at Johnson Space Center, which plays a secondary role in managing the commercial crew program to Kennedy Space Center, have privately told Ars for months that neither Boeing nor SpaceX would fly in 2017. Moreover, these sources have said, it will be fortunate if either company launches test flights, with crew, during the second half of 2018. The key factor to watch now is whether NASA procures additional seats from the Russians to deliver NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in 2019 and beyond. The agency already has contracted for Soyuz flights through 2018. Normally NASA buys seats about three years before a launch, so if it needs seats in early 2019 that transaction would probably happen fairly soon.