CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA decided Saturday that it was too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth aboard Boeing’s new capsule, and they will have to wait until next year to ride with SpaceX. What should have been One week test flight The couple has now lasted more than eight months.
Experienced pilots have been stuck aboard the International Space Station since early June. A layer of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks In the new capsule they crash the trip to the space station and end up in the shape they hold as engineers Conducted experiments and discussed What to do for flight return.
AP reporter Julie Walker reports that NASA will bring stranded Boeing Starliner astronauts home to SpaceX.
After nearly three months, results finally came in on Saturday from NASA’s highest-ranking spacecraft. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will be back in a SpaceX capsule in February. Their empty Starliner capsule will open in early September and attempt to return on autopilot by touchdown in the New Mexico desert.
As the Starliner’s test pilots, the pair must have overseen this crucial last leg of the journey.
“An experimental flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The decision “is the result of a commitment to security.”
Lessons learned from NASA’s two space shuttle accidents played a role, Nelson said. This time, he noted, open dialogue was encouraged rather than stifled.
“It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was absolutely the right one,” said NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free.
It was a blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its aviation side. Boeing counted on Starliner’s first crewed mission to revive the troubled space shuttle program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company insisted that the Starliner was safe based on all recent propulsion tests in space and on the ground.
Boeing did not participate in NASA’s Saturday news conference, but released a statement: “Boeing is focused, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and the spacecraft.” The company said it was preparing the spacecraft for a “safe and successful return.”
John Osberg of Rand Corporation, a senior engineer specializing in space and defense, said NASA made the right choice. “But America still has egg on its face because of Starliner design issues that should have been caught earlier.”
Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, are both retired Navy captains with previous long-term spaceflight experience. Before their June 5 launch from Cape Canaveral, Wilmore and Williams said they were overwhelmed by the uncertainty and stress of their careers decades ago.
During their Single Orbit News Conference Last month, the astronauts expressed confidence in the propulsion test being conducted. They had no complaints, they added, and enjoyed working on the space station.
Wilmore’s wife, Deanna, said she and their daughters, along with family and friends, are “praying for the safe return of whatever spacecraft it is.” Although they were disappointed that he would be away for so long, “we know this is God’s plan,” he said via text.
Flight Operations Director Norm Knight said he spoke with the astronauts Saturday and said they fully support the decision to postpone their return.
There were a few options.
The SpaceX capsule currently docked at the space station has been reserved for four people living there since March. They will return in late September, their usual six-month stay extended by a month by the Starliner dilemma. NASA said it would be unsafe to squeeze two more into the capsule, except in an emergency.
The docked Russian Soyuz capsule is even tighter, capable of only three flights — two of them Russians in one-year spaceships.
So Willmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX’s next taxi flight. It is scheduled to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four. NASA is trying two to accommodate Willmore and Williams on the return flight in late February.
NASA said no serious consideration was given to asking SpaceX for a speedy recovery. Last year, the Russian space agency had to rush Replacement Soyuz capsule For three humans whose original craft was damaged by space debris. The switch pushed their six-month mission to over a year.
Former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield praised the decision via X: “It’s better to err on the side of caution for astronauts’ lives.” Long missions “is what astronauts spend their whole lives doing. I’d take it in a heartbeat!
Starliner’s woes began long before its latest flight.
Poor software prompted the first uncrewed test flight in 2019 to take place in 2022. Then parachute and other problems developed, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propulsion system that halted the launch attempt in May. The leak was ultimately deemed isolated and small enough to cause concern. But more leaks sprung up following the lift, and all five thrusters failed.
All but one of those small thrusters restarted in flight. But engineers were puzzled by ground testing, which showed a thruster seal swelling and blocking a thrust line. They hypothesize that the orbital seals may have expanded and then returned to their normal size. Officials said the results marked a turning point as their concerns grew.
With all the uncertainty about how the thrusters might perform, “the team had a lot of risk,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial team program manager, told reporters.
These 28 motivations are important. Besides being required for a space station rendezvous, the large engines steer the craft out of orbit and point the capsule in the right direction at the end of the flight. Going astray can lead to disaster.
With the Columbia disaster still fresh in many minds — the space shuttle broke up during re-entry in 2003, killing all seven aboard — NASA has made an extra effort to embrace an open debate about the Starliner’s ability to return.
Despite Saturday’s decision, NASA isn’t giving up on Boeing. Nelson said he was “100%” sure the Starliner would fly again.
A decade ago, NASA went to its business team planning to have two U.S. companies compete to carry astronauts in the post-Space Shuttle era. Boeing won the bigger contract: more than $4 billion compared to SpaceX’s $2.6 billion.
With the station supply already under its belt, SpaceX delivered its first nine space flights in 2020, while Boeing ran into design flaws that set the company back more than $1 billion. NASA officials still hope to be able to fix Starliner’s problems with another crew flight in about a year.
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