Going into space initially for eight days, two American astronauts will remain on the International Space Station for eight months.
Boeing Starliner Spaceship PHOTO NAS
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft will return to Earth without astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, the agency announced Saturday at the end of a decision committee meeting.
The uncrewed return allows NASA and Boeing to continue collecting test data for the Starliner during its upcoming return flight without taking more risks than necessary for its crew, according to the statement published on NASA’s website.
Wilmore and Williams, who flew to the International Space Station in June aboard NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, have been busy, among other things, supporting station research and maintenance, as well as Starliner system testing and data analysis.
They will continue to work officially as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew until February 2025. They will fly home aboard a Dragon spacecraft, along with two other crew members assigned to the agency’s future regular Crew-9 mission, provided by SpaceX and which will be launched no earlier than Tuesday, September 24.
Starliner is expected to depart the space station and perform an autonomous, safe and controlled reentry and landing in early September, prior to the launch of the Crew-9 mission, to ensure a docking port is available on the station.
NASA and Boeing identified helium leaks and encountered problems with the spacecraft’s reaction control thrusters on June 6 as the Starliner approached the space station. Since then, engineering teams have completed a significant amount of work, but failure to meet the agency’s safety and performance requirements for manned spaceflight, as well as uncertainty and lack of agreement from experts, led NASA management to move the astronauts to the Crew-9 mission.
Crew-9 will be the ninth orbital mission to the space station under NASA’s Commercial Crew program, which partners with the US aerospace industry to achieve the goal of safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the orbital outpost by rockets and spacecraft manufactured in America and launched from American territory.
NASA and SpaceX are currently working on several elements before launch, including reconfiguring the Dragon Crew-9 seats and adjustments to carry additional cargo.
The series of problems encountered with the Starliner and the decision not to use this ship to bring the two astronauts back to Earth is a slap in the face for Boeing, already bogged down by repeated problems with its airliners, AFP comments.
