Not just for this, but for starship, to inspect the tiles, nestled perhaps in the engine dome during launch. It could fly out and magneticaly attach?
Something like that might have helped columbia, also.
Having to fire the thrusters and measure the effect on the ISS to see if they are working strikes me as more difficult than direct observation.
There does seem to still be a dragon capsule attached to the ISS... that could possibly be used for recovery if starliner's problems are more severe than being indicaated.
-- Donations Drive.
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos