Will it be Starliner or SpaceX’s Crew-9 Dragon? We may soon find out.
On Tuesday morning, NASA released a statement on X (formerly Twitter) that a decision regarding the return of the Starliner astronauts will come as early as next week. Teams continue work to analyze data and recreate Starliner’s thruster issue − which was seen when the thrusters shut off prior to docking to the space station in June.
According to the statement, which was signed off by NASA’s Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for space operations: “We now are planning for decisional meetings no earlier than next week to give the time we need to make the best decision possible for the safety of our crew, which is our top priority.”
It’s been almost a week since NASA announced that they are weighing options on how best to bring the Starliner Crewed Flight Test astronauts, Butch Willmore and Sunita Williams, back from the International Space Station. Amidst the silence from NASA and Boeing, the world waits to see if the crew will return on Starliner, or if they will join NASA’s Crew-9 mission, which would mean staying on the outpost into 2025 and coming home on a Boeing competitor spacecraft, the SpaceX Dragon.
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Starliner test flight turns into long space station stay
When NASA astronauts Wilmore and Williams launched to space aboard Boeing’s Starliner on June 5 on its first crewed flight, no one anticipated a two month stay. They were expecting a week long test flight to certify Starliner to transport NASA astronauts to and from the space station.
But now it’s August, and no solutions to the complicated thruster issue have yet been found.
Right now, every move NASA takes could be a risk. On top of uncertainty over whether the Starliner’s thrusters can preform as expected upon reentry, other solutions also impact crew rotation in the jampacked space station schedule.
Should NASA go the route of adding Williams and Wilmore to Crew-9, only two of the four designated Crew-9 members will be launched to the space station on that mission. The Starliner crew would take the place of the two astronauts bumped and become part of Crew-9’s expedition, and return with the two in February − turning their mission into an eight-month stay.
However, no official decision has been made, and the two astronauts could still return on Starliner, should it be determined safe to do so.
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars.
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