NASA announced that the two astronauts on the Starliner will stay at the ISS until February next year and fly back to Earth on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.
In a press conference on August 24, NASA announced that after carefully assessing the situation, NASA and Boeing engineers could not agree on whether it was safe to fly astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back on the malfunctioning Starliner spacecraft. As a result, they decided that the crew would remain on the ISS until February 2025 when SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft will dock with the station and take them home, according to New Atlas.
The Starliner project was years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget after a decade of development. Starliner also suffered a series of last-minute aborts before its first manned mission was launched on May 6, 2024, from Cape Canaveral Space Station on an Atlas V rocket. There had been concerns about the mission due to a helium leak in the thruster system, but officials determined it was not a major problem. However, after liftoff, five of the thrusters failed and there was an issue with an oxygen valve. Starliner remained docked with the ISS, but Wilmore and Williams’ eight-day flight was turned into seven months.
The alternative route, in particular, is being undertaken by Boeing’s rival SpaceX, which has flown numerous crew and cargo flights to the ISS and is preparing for its first private spacewalk this week. The future of the Starliner is a big question, as the decision will have a series of ripple effects that will need to be addressed in the near future.
The most obvious issue is the need to make room on the Dragon for the pair of astronauts. The other two astronauts will have to postpone their flights next February to make room. There’s also the issue of the spacesuits Wilmore and Williams will have to deal with. The Starliner suits they’ll be wearing are based on older NASA designs, while SpaceX’s are a cutting-edge new design. As a result, the Boeing suits won’t fit the SpaceX seats, and the life support and communications equipment won’t work either. Even more troubling is that the SpaceX suits are custom-made for the astronauts wearing them. Unless something is done to modify the SpaceX suits for the Starliner astronauts, the pair risk flying back to Earth with short sleeves.
With the Starliner, the onboard computer will need to be reprogrammed to allow it to separate from the ISS and fly back to Earth autonomously. Experts fear that the malfunctioning spacecraft could jam the docking mechanism, leaving the station with fewer ports for other spacecraft. Officials are also uncertain whether the Starliner can reenter the atmosphere with its faulty thrusters. Boeing engineers want to recover the capsule for research, but if a landing is too risky, instructing the Starliner to burn up in the atmosphere over the South Pacific may be necessary. Finally, adding two people to the ISS means adding supplies at a cost of about $20,000 per kilogram.