NASA revealed on Wednesday that it is considering bringing back the two astronauts on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in February 2025 aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule. The two crew members on Boeing’s first manned space mission, veteran NASA astronauts Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams, are today completing 63 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), almost seven weeks longer than planned, due to technical problems with the Starliner.
During a conference call, executives from the US space agency have indicated that there is still no return date for both of them and have announced that they are considering the option of returning in February 2025 in a SpaceX Dragon capsule, or even in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The agency estimates that it will make a decision on the use of the Dragon towards the middle of this month and, if it opts for this route, they would send Crew 9 to the ISS with two crew members and not four, as is usual in crew rotation missions on the ISS.
The two remaining seats on Crew 9, which is scheduled to launch on September 24, would be reserved for Wilmore and Williams, who would then have to remain in the orbiting laboratory for an additional six months.
“We have not yet made a decision on the return of Butch and Suni. We have a very tight time frame and we are working very hard with all the stakeholders, with the teams at Boeing, NASA and SpaceX,” NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said in today’s teleconference. He said that “the right choice will be made at the right time” once all the crew return options have been evaluated.
Although several scenarios are open, the first option remains the return of Wilmore and Williams on the Starliner, the NASA executive added. Dana Weigel, deputy program manager for NASA’s International Space Station, said that a “contingency plan” is currently being developed, but that no decision has yet been made on the return dates of the two astronauts or on the vehicle that will be used.
NASA astronauts Wilmore and Williams were due to return to Earth on June 14, just eight days after their launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but thruster failures and small helium leaks on the Starliner have prevented their return. NASA and Boeing engineers are continuing to conduct tests on the Starliner’s 27 thrusters at White Sands, New Mexico, to “understand the root cause of their degradation” and “how this may affect the return of the crew.”
“The team is working to reduce uncertainty and reach consensus on the best option, with the goal of bringing the Starliner crew home as soon as possible,” he insisted today. Stitch. The NASA and Space X announced Tuesday that the launch of the Crew-9 crewed mission, initially scheduled for August 18, will now take place on September 24. This adjustment will allow more time to complete testing and planning for the return of the first crewed mission, called the Crew Flight Test, of the Starliner, which seeks to obtain NASA certifications so that the ship can function as a second transportation provider to the ISS, as SpaceX already does.
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