NASA on Wednesday said that it is nearing making a final call on how and when the two astronauts who launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will return home.
What Happened: “We're in [sic] a point where that last week in August we really should be making a call, if not sooner," Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said on Wednesday in a media teleconference.
NASA is currently considering multiple options for returning Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore from the ISS but has not made a final decision yet. The two astronauts in space, NASA astronaut Joe Acaba said, are relying on those on the ground to analyze the data and come up with a plan for return and haven’t stated their preference yet.
Boeing launched its Starliner with Williams and Wilmore to the ISS on June 5. Though the two were supposed to return in about eight days, technical issues identified with the spacecraft while docking delayed the return journey. NASA and Boeing are currently evaluating the spacecraft's reliability for the return flight.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich said last week that while the agency is considering returning the astronauts aboard the Starliner itself, it is also considering other options, including using SpaceX‘s Dragon spacecraft.
The ISS has only two docking ports and the Starliner and Crew 8 spacecraft are already using them. Last week, NASA delayed the Crew-9 mission by a month to no earlier than Sept. 24 in a bid to give Boeing Starliner mission managers time to confirm its return to Earth.
Starliner has to undock first from the ISS to free up the port before the Crew-9 mission launches. One of the options that NASA is considering now is to undock the Starliner without a crew and then launch Crew-9 with just 2 astronauts aboard the Dragon spacecraft instead of four.
The Dragon spacecraft will then return in February 2025 with Wilmore, Williams, and the two Crew-9 astronauts.
NASA has not zeroed in on a final decision or date of return as of today.
Why It Matters: Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been marred by several delays since the start. The spacecraft was supposed to have its first uncrewed test flight in 2015 which was delayed up to 2019. The spacecraft then failed to achieve its intended orbit. In 2022, the spacecraft completed its first successful uncrewed flight to the International Space Station.
NASA awarded both Boeing and Elon Musk‘s SpaceX contracts to enable transportation to and from the ISS after retiring its space shuttle. SpaceX sent its first crewed mission to the ISS in 2020 on its Dragon spacecraft and has since then undertaken multiple missions, overtaking its traditional rival.
A NASA official confirmed on Wednesday that the agency is still intent on developing two separate “strong and capable spacecraft” and is convinced that it has a “very good chance” of doing that, implying it is not giving up on Starliner. But future decisions will be made on the basis of more data, they added.
The agency is also not ready to deem the Starliner test flight a mishap if it returns without a crew, an official added.
Russ DeLoach, NASA's Chief of Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA,) said that the current view inside NASA is that the mission need not be deemed a mishap if NASA chooses to return the astronauts via another spacecraft.
“…just the fact that if NASA steps in and says hey we now want our crew to fly home on another vehicle, that in itself shouldn’t be classified as a mishap,” he said, while adding that a mishap may still occur if the Starliner faces an issue when returning without a crew.
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Photo courtesy: NASA
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