Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched in early June aboard Starliner and have been on the ISS ever since, where their ship remains docked.
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The eight-day stay will ultimately last eight months. The two astronauts transported to the International Space Station by Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will not return to Earth until February with competitor SpaceX, NASA announced on Saturday, August 24.
The serial difficulties encountered on the Starliner led to this heavy decision not to use this ship to bring Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth. A snub for Boeing, already bogged down by repeated setbacks on its airliners. “NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with Crew-9 next February, and that Starliner will return without a crew.”NASA chief Bill Nelson said at a news conference following a decision-making committee meeting on Saturday.
He justified the decision as a safety precaution, but said he still counted on the SpaceX-Boeing duo to get astronauts into space, saying he was confident “100%” Boeing would again launch the Starliner with a crew. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched in early June and are on the ISS, where their Starliner spacecraft remains docked.
It was originally supposed to bring them back to Earth eight days later, but problems detected in its propulsion system led NASA to question its reliability. And to consider a radical backup solution: bringing back its passengers, who have already spent two and a half months in the flying laboratory, with a regular SpaceX mission in February.
For weeks, Boeing and NASA teams have been conducting tests to better understand the cause of the problems encountered in flight, particularly on the spacecraft’s thrusters. The main concern is that the Starliner will not be able to achieve the thrust necessary to tear itself out of orbit and begin its descent to Earth. Attempting a return with these malfunctions “was simply too risky for the crew”said Steve Stich, a senior NASA official. The ship will therefore leave the ISS to return to Earth, without its crew, “early September”.
