NASA Extends Boeing Starliner Astronauts’ Space Station Stay to 2025
Persistent concerns with the vehicle’s propulsion systems mean Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will return home next year in a SpaceX vehicle.
NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Status News Conference
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NASA hosts a live news conference at 1 p.m. EDT from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, following the internal Agency Test Flight Readiness Review for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test. NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test launched on June 5 on a ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It is an end-to-end test of the Starliner system as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
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By Kenneth Chang
Aug. 24, 2024Updated 1:53 p.m. ET
Two astronauts who have spent months aboard the International Space Station will have to stay there months longer after NASA decided Saturday they could not return on Boeing’s troubled Starliner space vehicle. They will return instead on a SpaceX capsule next year.
That decision finally brings clarity to the saga of the two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who docked at the space station as part of a test flight of the Boeing vehicle. It also extends months of difficult problems experienced by Boeing, a dominant aerospace company that has faced embarrassing setbacks in its much larger civilian aviation and defense divisions this year.
“A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,” Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference, “and so the decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner home uncrewed is a result of a commitment to safety.”
Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore were to have stayed at the I.S.S. for at least eight days. Problems almost inevitably pop up during test flights like this one, the first with people aboard the Starliner spacecraft, and it was not at first a surprise that their stay stretched out a couple of weeks longer.
The Boeing Starliner test crew astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the International Space Station’s Harmony module in July.Credit...NASA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But even after lengthy analysis and ground testing, engineers still could not say with certainty why several of Starliner’s thrusters had malfunctioned before the capsule and the astronauts docked with the space station in June.
That lingering uncertainty spurred unease and led NASA leaders to decide they should not risk the lives of Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore on Starliner. Instead they elected to rely on a different spacecraft — the Crew Dragon, built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX — for the return trip.
Norman Knight, the chief of the flight director office, said he had talked to Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore. “They support the agency’s decision fully, and they’re ready to continue this mission onboard I.S.S.,” Mr. Knight said.
Starliner will undock and return to Earth in early September without anyone aboard. The next launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon is scheduled for no earlier than Sept. 24.
It will carry only two astronauts instead of the usual crew of four for a six-month mission at the space station. That leaves two seats for Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore, who will remain in orbit and become full-fledged members of the space station crew. That will extend their stay at the space station to eight months.
The four astronauts — Ms. Williams, Mr. Wilmore and the two astronauts launching on Crew Dragon in September — are to return to Earth around February.
This is a developing story.
Kenneth Chang, a science reporter at The Times, covers NASA and the solar system, and research closer to Earth. More about Kenneth Chang
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