“NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with Crew-9 in February of next year and that Starliner will return uncrewed,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told reporters. The return of Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams was delayed by engine malfunctions on the Boeing spacecraft.
The decision means new PR problems for Boeing, because the two astronauts must now spend a total of eight months in orbit instead of the originally planned eight days.
After years of delays in the Starliner’s development, the spacecraft finally launched in early June, carrying veteran astronauts Wilmore and Williams to the ISS. But NASA had to postpone the return indefinitely while it investigated problems with the spacecraft’s propulsion system. Engineers at Boeing and NASA feared that the Starliner might not have the propulsion power to deorbit and begin its descent to Earth.
NASA officials said Saturday they had chosen the highly unusual option of bringing the astronauts back from the flying lab aboard a SpaceX vehicle planned for February, rather than on their own spacecraft. Under the new plan, the SpaceX Crew-9 mission will launch in late September, but will only carry two passengers instead of the four originally planned. It will remain anchored to the ISS until its planned return in February, bringing back its own crew members and their two stranded colleagues.
This approach is a further blow to the already tarnished image of US giant Boeing, whose aircraft division has been plagued by safety concerns and quality problems in recent years. Ten years ago, after the Space Shuttle was retired, NASA ordered new space shuttles from Boeing and SpaceX that could transport astronauts to the ISS and back again. With two such vehicles, NASA reasoned, there would always be a backup vehicle if one of the two vehicles had problems.
But Elon Musk’s SpaceX beat Boeing to the punch and has been the only vehicle to transport astronauts for four years. This year’s manned Starliner flight, which followed years of delays and disappointments during the spacecraft’s development, was intended to be a final test of the vehicle before it goes into regular service.
NASA has stated that astronauts on the ISS will have ample supplies, be trained for long stays, and conduct numerous experiments.
