IThey 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 Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will not return to Earth until February with competitor SpaceX, NASA announced on Saturday.
“NASA has decided that Butch and Suni will return with Crew-9 next February, and that Starliner will return without a crew,” NASA chief Bill Nelson said at a news conference following a decision-making committee meeting on Saturday.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched in early June aboard Starliner, and have been on the ISS ever since, where their ship has remained docked. It was originally supposed to return them to Earth eight days later, but problems with its propulsion system led NASA to question its reliability.
For weeks, Boeing and NASA teams have been conducting tests to better understand the cause of the problems encountered in flight, particularly on the spacecraft’s thrusters.
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The main concern is that Starliner will not be able to generate the thrust needed to break out of orbit and begin its descent to Earth. Deeming the ship unsafe, NASA is condemning it to return to Earth empty.
A regular SpaceX mission, named Crew-9, should therefore take off at the end of September, carrying only two astronauts instead of four. It would remain docked to the ISS until its return to Earth scheduled for February. And would then bring back the two Boeing castaways in addition to the two Crew-9 astronauts.
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