After Butch Wilmore was in the command seat of the Starliner Earlier this summer, he thanked the people who tried to blow him and his crewmate Suni Williams up. Space.

“Excellent. Good work, guys,” said the NASA said the astronaut before a launch attempt that was ultimately aborted. “See you in a few weeks – or later.”

Commentators on the product launch were amused.

“Butch plans to stay up there longer,” said Jim May, a Boeing engineer, repeating Wilmore’s radio message. “Maybe he’ll do some extra manual flying demos while he’s there.”

A few days later, the two astronauts were actually launched to the International Space Stationand these words reveal their state of mind before the flight: They knew that the planned week in space could last longer. But the words also gave a hint of the rest of the agonizing mission.

Boeing’s Starliner with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams reached the International Space Station on June 6, 2024.
Photo credit: NASA

Wilmore and Williams have been floating 400 kilometers above the Earth for more than two months. Starliner, the new Boeing spacecraft they were test-piloting, encountered elusive propulsion problems on the trip. Now the US space agency must decide whether to send the two home in their test capsule or make complicated arrangements for them to fly in another spacecraft – one built and piloted by Boeing’s competitor. SpaceXBoeing, for its part, is firmly convinced that Starliner can accomplish this task.

Switching to SpaceX Crew Dragon is not an ideal solution for NASA either. The change would have cascading effects on launch pads and flight schedules.

“We’re reaching a point where we should make a decision no later than the last week of August,” said Ken Bowersox, NASA’s deputy director of space operations.

Aside from general concerns about Wilmore and Williams’ health – their bodies are exposed to excessive radiation in space and bone loss occurs – the agency is under time pressure regarding the passenger list.

Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore (left) and Suni Williams could stay in space for another six months if NASA decides to send them home in a SpaceX capsule.
Photo credit: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

The U.S. portion of the space station has four ports—two for spacecraft and two for freighters. Currently, a SpaceX capsule and a Starliner occupy both crew docks. There is no interoperability between U.S. ships and Russian ports, and the cargo bays are not equipped to accommodate passenger ships. In short, the parking lot is full.

NASA has already postponed the next crew rotation a month to buy some time to find the way forward for Starliner, but the delayed SpaceX capsule will be on its way to the station on September 24. Starliner will have to undock beforehand, either with human pilots or by robot, to make room for the other SpaceX spacecraft.

In addition to the logistics on the station, NASA also had to consider how changes would affect operations on Earth. By delaying the next SpaceX Crew-9 flightFor example, the agency had to quickly obtain approval to move the launch to another launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Otherwise, Crew-9 would have to delay preparations for the launch of Europe Clippera robotic research mission to explore one of the Jupiter’s moons.

All of these changes leave a pretty tight window for the Starliner to depart in September. If NASA decides not to send the Starliner astronauts home in the Starliner, they will remain on the station until February 2025, turning their original eight-day visit into an eight-month stopover.

If the Starliner crew returns in a SpaceX spacecraft, they will not arrive home until February 2025.
Photo credit: NASA

“At some point we need to bring these people home and return to a normal crew size on the ISS,” Bowersox said.

Although astronauts are trained to take into account unforeseen changes in departures and arrivals, longer stay in space For both of them, this means that they will be separated from their families for more than half a year.

Even astronauts, sometimes considered superhuman, can succumb to the boredom of life far from Earth. NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who recently spent 371 days on the space station because his Russian flight home was canceled, a coolant leaksaid it was a stressful ordeal.

“The psychological factor was a bigger factor than I expected,” he said at the time.

Suni Williams (left) and Butch Wilmore worked on deferred maintenance tasks and repairs on the space station.
Photo credit: NASA

Wilmore and Williams have been busy since their arrival. In addition to running diagnostic tests on the Starliner, they have also helped out in other ways at the orbital lab. Both have taken on deferred maintenance tasks – such as installing a replacement urine processor called the Frankenpump – that have at times made them seem like glorified space janitors.

Having extra personnel available to fill gaps is an advantage for NASA, but it also has its disadvantages. More people in orbit means extra people to feed and more carbon dioxide to filter out of the air. Time on the exercise machines must be carefully monitored to ensure everyone stays fit in zero gravity.

Getting Starliner through the testing phase was a relentless struggle for Boeing, although its representatives were not always courteous why the program has suffered so many setbacks. One set of problems spans a decade.

After the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA used Russian rockets for all flights to the space station, costing the United States tens of millions of dollars per flight. Some considered this a national embarrassment.

With Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, there are currently nine people on the International Space Station.
Photo credit: NASA

In 2014, NASA commissioned Boeing and SpaceX to build commercial spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from the station. While SpaceX’s spacecraft entered service four years ago, Boeing’s Starliner has not yet received certification for regular flight operations. NASA never intended to put all its eggs in one basket. Elon Musk‘s basket and says that Starliner is still indispensable as a replacement.

In a Filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionBoeing said the Starliner problems cost the company $125 million in the last quarter and there is a likelihood it will “incur further losses in future periods.”

When asked which direction Wilmore and Williams wanted to travel back to Earth, Joe Acaba, NASA’s chief astronaut, said it was not their decision.

“It’s not really about preferences,” he told reporters on August 14. “They will wait until we analyze the data and make a decision, and then they will do what we ask.”