International Space Station | Astronauts stuck in space to return to Earth in February with SpaceX

(Houston) They were supposed to spend eight days in space, but they will stay there for eight months: the two astronauts transported to the International Space Station by the ship Starliner Boeing’s spacecraft will not return to Earth until February with competitor SpaceX, NASA announced Saturday.

The serial difficulties encountered on the Starliner led to the difficult decision not to use the ship to bring Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth. A snub for Boeing, already mired in repeated setbacks with its airliners.

“NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with Crew-9 next February, and that Starliner would return without a crew,” NASA chief Bill Nelson said at a news conference following a decision-making committee meeting Saturday.

He justified the decision as a safety precaution, but said he still counted on the SpaceX-Boeing duo to get astronauts into space, declaring that he was “100%” confident that Boeing would launch again. Starliner with a crew.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched in early June aboard Starlinerand they have been on the ISS ever since, where their ship has remained docked.

Radical solution

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, teams at Boeing and NASA 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 Starliner cannot achieve the thrust needed to break away from orbit and begin its descent toward Earth.

Attempting a return with these malfunctions “was simply too risky for the crew,” said Steve Stich, a senior NASA official. Starliner will therefore leave the ISS to return to Earth, without its crew, “at the beginning of September”.

A regular SpaceX mission, named Crew-9, is set to launch in late September, carrying only two astronauts instead of four. It is to remain docked to the ISS until its scheduled return to Earth in February. At that point, it would bring back the two Boeing survivors in addition to the two Crew-9 astronauts.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, stuck in orbit for many more months, “fully support the agency’s decision and are prepared to continue their mission aboard the ISS,” NASA official Norm Knight said at the press conference.

Additional analyses

Boeing still assured at the beginning of the month that it was “confident” in the ability to Starliner “to return safely with the crew.” But NASA, extremely cautious since the deadly accidents of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, persisted in demanding additional analyses, ultimately arriving at a “technical disagreement” with Boeing, Steve Stich modestly declared.

“Trust must be reciprocal,” Bill Nelson nevertheless warned.

This decision, unanimous on the NASA side, further tarnishes the image of Boeing, which is also in turmoil following a series of malfunctions on its planes.

In a statement, the manufacturer said it was “focusing, above all, on the safety of the crew and the ship.”

NASA ordered a new spacecraft from Boeing and SpaceX ten years ago to each carry its astronauts to the ISS. With two vehicles, it wants to avoid being left without a solution in case of a problem with one or the other.

But Elon Musk’s company has largely beaten Boeing and has been acting alone as the American space taxi for four years now.

This first flight of Starliner The crewed test, completed years late due to setbacks during its development, was to be the final test before starting regular operations.