NASA’s two Boeing Starliner astronauts will not be returning on their Starliner spacecraft as planned due to concerns over the spacecraft’s thrusters, the space agency announced Saturday (Aug. 24).
Instead, the astronauts — Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams — will ride SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft and return to Earth no earlier than February 2025, nearly eight months after their launch. The Starliner spacecraft, meanwhile, will be return empty for a landing in White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, sometime in mid- to late-September, NASA officials said.
“The bottom line with respect to bring Starliner back was that there was just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters,” NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich said in a NASA press conference on Saturday. “It was just too much risk with a crew and so we decided to pursue the uncrewed testing.”
Starliner experienced helium leaks and thruster problems during its flight to the International Space Station (ISS) after launching on June 5. Those problems led to testing on the ground and in space, with NASA ultimately deciding to return the Starliner astronauts home on SpaceX’s Dragon to be on the safe side.
“I think everybody is professional and did their jobs, but there is a sense of not accomplishing the mission that we set out to do,” Stich added. “And even for myself personally, that is a hard thing to go through.”
The decision effective turns what was initially planned to be an 8-day mission into an 8-month mission for Wilmore and Williams.
SpaceX will now launch the Crew-9 mission to the ISS for NASA with only two astronauts aboard in late September, with the remaining two seats reserved for Williams and Wilmore’s return.
The decision is also a blow to Boeing, which won a $4.2 billion NASA contract to fly at least six crewed flights to the ISS for NASA in 2014. The company’s first uncrewed test flight in 2019 failed to reach the space station, forcing the company to fly a second uncrewed test in 2022. More issues delayed the current Crew Test Flight to June 2024.
SpaceX received a $2.6 billion contract of its own in 2014 and began flying NASA astronauts to the ISS in 2020. SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission will be the company’s tenth crew flight for NASA.
“Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and most routine,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told reporters Saturday during the briefing. “A test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine.”
Nelson said he and other agency managers and leaders had safety front of mind ahead of Saturday’s decision, including the agency’s two fatal space shuttle accidents, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, that killed 14 astronauts in all.
“The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring Boeing’s Starliner home uncrewed is the result of our commitment to safety: our core value and our North Star,” he added.
Editor’s note: This is a developing story and will be updated once NASA’s press briefing concludes.f here
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