NASA Pushes Return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore Back to Earth to 2025 in a SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule, as Boeing’s Starliner’s Woes Are Ongoing

The eight longest days in space will only end next year.

NASA has finally decided that a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule will bring home the two stranded astronauts aboard the International Space Station for about 80 days,

The issues plaguing the Boeing Starliner spacecraft make ‘a stunning turn of events’ for the beleaguered aerospace giant.

CNN reported:

“The news comes after the space agency held a formal review on Saturday to determine whether it would deem Boeing’s Starliner vehicle safe enough to return home with its crew — or if SpaceX’s workhorse Crew Dragon spacecraft would have to step in to save the day.”

Helium leaks and thrusters that abruptly stopped working have plagued the test flight that took Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the space station in early June.

“On Saturday, Nelson said NASA considered its extensive experience with spaceflight — both successful and unsuccessful — when making the decision. A poll of NASA representatives from across the agency’s departments and research, oversight and development centers was unanimous, according to agency officials.

‘We have had mistakes done in the past: We lost two space shuttles as a result of there not being a culture in which information could come forward’, Nelson said. ‘Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and even at its most routine. And a test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine’.”

The next SpaceX mission will leave two empty seats for Williams and Wilmore to occupy on the Crew-9 flight home.

They will remain on-site for an additional six months.

“The reassignment to Crew-9 will push the duo’s return to February 2025 at the earliest.”

“’The bottom line relative to bringing Starliner back is — there was just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters’, [Stitch] said. It was just too much risk with the crew, and so we decided to pursue the uncrewed path forward’.”

The space agency says it intentionally designed its Commercial Crew Program to allow each spacecraft to serve as backup for the others.

“’We’re in a kind of a new situation here and that we’ve got multiple options’, said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, on August 7. ‘That’s something that we’re going to have to deal with in the future — we could find ourselves in a situation where we need to bring a (SpaceX) Dragon crew or a (Russian) Soyuz crew back on a Starliner’.”

SpaceX stands ready to support @NASA however we can https://t.co/wekmURt8CX

— Gwynne Shotwell (@Gwynne_Shotwell) August 24, 2024

Read more:

BRING THEM HOME: Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s Families Speak up as the Astronauts Remain Stranded in Space

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