They were scheduled to leave for eight days in space, and will remain there for eight months: The two astronauts who were carried to the International Space Station by Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will not return to Earth until February with rival SpaceX, NASA announced Saturday.
The Starliner’s successive difficulties led to the difficult decision not to use the ship to return Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams to Earth. It’s a snub to Boeing, which has already been hobbled by repeated setbacks with its aircraft.
“NASA has decided that Butch and Sonny will return with Crew-9 next February, and Starliner will return without a crew,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at a news conference after the decision-making panel on Saturday.
He justified the decision as a safety precaution, but said he still counted on SpaceX and Boeing to get astronauts into space, declaring that he was “100 percent” certain that Boeing would launch Starliner again with a crew.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Starliner in early June and have been aboard the International Space Station ever since, where their ship remains docked.
radical solution
They were originally supposed to return to Earth after eight days, but problems discovered in its propulsion system led NASA to question its reliability.
And consider a radical emergency solution: returning its passengers, who have already spent two and a half months in the flying lab, on a regular SpaceX mission in February.
For weeks, Boeing and NASA teams have been running tests to better understand the cause of the flight problems, particularly with the spacecraft’s thrusters. The main concern is that Starliner won’t be able to generate the thrust needed to de-orbit and begin its descent toward Earth.
“Attempting to return with these failures was simply too risky for the crew,” said Steve Stich, a senior NASA official. Starliner will leave the International Space Station and return to Earth, without its crew, “in early September.”
SpaceX’s regular mission, called Crew-9, is scheduled to launch in late September, with just two astronauts instead of four. It is to remain docked to the International Space Station until its scheduled return to Earth in February. Then two Boeing outcasts will be brought back in addition to the two Crew-9 astronauts.
SpaceX #2, Gwynne Shotwell, responded to X: “SpaceX stands ready to help NASA in any way we can.”
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who are stuck in orbit for several more months, “fully support the agency's decision and are prepared to continue their mission aboard the International Space Station,” NASA official Norm Knight said at the news conference.
Additional analysis
Boeing still maintained earlier this month that it was “confident” that Starliner would “return safely with crew.” But NASA, which has been extremely cautious since the fatal Challenger and Columbia shuttle accidents, continued to demand additional analysis, eventually reaching a “technical disagreement” with Boeing, Steve Stich modestly declared.
“Trust has to be mutual,” Bill Nelson warned.
This decision, which was taken unanimously by NASA, further damages the image of Boeing, which is also suffering from turmoil after a series of failures in its aircraft.
The manufacturer said in a press release that it “focuses, above all, on the safety of the crew and the vessel.”
Ten years ago, NASA ordered new spacecraft from both Boeing and SpaceX to carry its astronauts to the International Space Station. With two vehicles, it didn’t want to be left out in the cold if one or the other had a problem.
But Elon Musk's company has largely outpaced Boeing, and has been playing the role of America's space taxi alone for four years.
This first crewed flight of the Starliner, which was delayed by years due to setbacks during its development, was the final test before regular operations began.
