NASA officials said Saturday that two NASA astronauts who traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) in June aboard Boeing's ailing Starliner spacecraft will have to return to Earth on a SpaceX ship early next year, deeming problems with the Starliner's propulsion system too dangerous to bring the first crew home as planned.
Veteran NASA Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, both former military test pilots, became the first crew to fly a Starliner on June 5 when they launched to the ISS for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission.
But Starliner's The first 24 hours of the flight to the ISS saw a series of propulsion system failures, stranding the astronauts on the station for 79 days while Boeing scrambled to investigate the problems.
NASA officials told reporters at a news conference in Houston that Wilmore and Williams, both former military test pilots, are safe and ready to stay longer. They will use their extra time to conduct science experiments along with the station's seven other astronauts, NASA said.
In a rare shakeup of NASA's astronaut workforce, two astronauts are expected to return in February 2025. SpaceX Crew Dragon The spacecraft is scheduled to launch next month as part of a routine astronaut rotation mission. Two of the four Crew Dragon astronaut spots will remain empty for Wilmore and Williams.
The agency’s decision to tap Boeing’s chief space rival to return astronauts is one of the most significant for NASA in years. Boeing had hoped its Starliner test mission would save the troubled program after years of development problems and more than $1.6 billion in cost overruns since 2016.
Five of Starliner's 28 engines failed during the flight, and there were several leaks of helium, which is used to pressurize the engines. It still managed to dock with the station, a football-field-sized laboratory that has housed rotating crews of astronauts for more than two decades.
In a statement, NASA said Starliner will undock from the ISS without a crew in “early September.” The spacecraft will attempt to return to Earth autonomously, abandoning the primary purpose of the test, which was to have a crew present and control the return flight.
“I know this is not the solution we were hoping for, but we are committed to taking the necessary actions to support NASA’s decision,” Boeing’s Starliner chief Mark Nappi told employees in an email.
“The primary focus is on ensuring the safety of the crew and the spacecraft,” Nappi said.
Several senior NASA officials and Boeing representatives made the decision at a meeting in Houston on Saturday morning.
NASA space operations chief Ken Bowersox said agency officials voted unanimously to have Crew Dragon bring the astronauts home. Boeing voted for Starliner, which it said was safe.
Nelson told reporters at a news conference in Houston that he had discussed the agency's decision with Boeing's new CEO Kelly Ortberg and was confident Boeing would continue its Starliner program. Nelson said he was “100 percent” confident the spacecraft would carry another crew in the future.
“He expressed to me his intention to continue working on the issues once Starliner was safely back,” Nelson said of Ortberg.
Boeing has struggled for years to develop Starliner, a chewing gum-shaped capsule meant to compete with Crew Dragon as the U.S.'s second choice for sending crews of astronauts into and out of Earth orbit. The company has also struggled with quality problems in manufacturing its commercial jets, its most important products.
Starliner failed a 2019 test of launching to the ISS without a crew, but largely succeeded in a 2022 repeat attempt that also encountered engine issues. Its June mission with the first crew was needed before NASA could certify the capsule for regular flights, but Starliner's crew certification path is now uncertain.
The protracted mission cost Boeing $125 million (about Rs 1,048 crore), securities filings show. The company set up tests and simulations on Earth to gather data it used to try to convince NASA officials that Starliner was safe to bring crews home.
But the results of those tests raised more complex engineering questions and ultimately failed to allay NASA officials' concerns about Starliner's engines and its ability to make a return flight with a crew, the most difficult and daunting part of the test mission.
“There was too much uncertainty in the engine projections,” NASA commercial program manager Steve Stich told reporters.
Uncertainty over whether Starliner will receive long-awaited NASA certification will compound the crises facing Ortberg, who began this month on a mission to restore the planemaker's reputation after a door panel was violently torn off a 737 MAX passenger jet in mid-air in January.
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