SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule will bring Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back home from the International Space Station in February 2025, NASA said on Saturday.
The agency’s decision marks the latest setback for Boeing’s costly and chronically delayed Starliner program, and it means extending the astronauts’ intended eight-day journey to a total of eight months at the International Space Station.
Since Boeing first landed its $4.3 billion contract with NASA in 2014, the Starliner effort has gone more than $1.5 billion over budget, starting with a botched first test flight and continuing with a slew of subsequent issues, including faulty parachutes, flammable protective tape, rust accumulation, an issue involving an oxygen tank’s pressure regulation valve, and most recently, helium leaks that could compromise the vehicle’s thrusters en route to Earth.
Starliner’s first crewed test-flight launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on June 5. Starliner teams spotted one helium leak pre-launch, two other leaks during launch, and two more after the craft docked at ISS. Since then, NASA and Boeing have been evaluating whether the craft is safe enough to bring its passengers — Williams and Wilmore — back to Earth. At the time, there was talk that the astronauts might be stuck up there for as long as six months.
Still currently docked at ISS, NASA says the Boeing Starliner will ultimately return to Earth uncrewed, in spite of Boeing’s stance that the Starliner is capable of carrying Williams and Wilmore home safely.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson told press on Saturday, “Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and most routine. A test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine.” According to Nelson, NASA’s call to keep the astronauts aboard ISS for several additional months, and return the Starliner uncrewed in September, “is a result of a commitment to safety.”
Williams and Wilmore will instead return via SpaceX’s several months-long Crew-9 mission, which was originally slated to launch with four astronauts aboard in August, but will now take off with just two crew members as soon as September 24. The staffing change-up will leave two seats open for the stranded astronauts when the Crew Dragon capsule returns to Earth in February.
Upon their return, the Starliner astronauts may have no choice but to step foot on Earth wearing SpaceX suits. “From a suit standpoint, they’re really not interchangeable,” NASA deputy associate administrator Joel Montalbano said earlier this month. “You can’t have a Boeing suit in a SpaceX [craft], or a SpaceX suit in a Boeing vehicle. So that would not be the plan,” he added.
