SpaceX launches half-empty spacecraft for Boeing astronaut crew

• SpaceX launched a half-empty Crew Dragon for two Boeing astronauts awaiting a ride home.
• NASA made a tough call after Boeing’s spacecraft malfunctioned. Astronauts won’t return until 2025.
• SpaceX’s spacecraft outperformed Boeing’s, delivering astronauts faster for nearly half the cost.

SpaceX just launched a half-empty Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit for two astronauts awaiting a ride home.

Crew Dragon normally carries four astronauts into space at a time, but for Saturday’s launch, only two were on board.

The unusual mission it is the result of one of the toughest safety decisions NASA has had to make in decades. It’s also a huge blow to Boeing’s space program.

Boeing astronauts have been stuck in space for months

In June, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have become the first astronauts to fly aboard the Boeing Starliner, which is slated to be another ship in NASA’s lineup alongside the SpaceX Crew Dragon. The two were conducting the spacecraft’s first manned test flight, designed to prove it was ready for routine human spaceflight.

But the Starliner’s thrusters began to falter as it approached the International Space Station shortly after launch.

After some troubleshooting, the ship finally docked with the ISS and Williams and Wilmore arrived safely at the station. NASA and Boeing weren’t sure how the thrusters would work on the way back to Earth.

After weeks of testing, analysis and reviews, NASA officials didn’t feel confident enough to trust the Starliner with the lives of astronauts again.

In a decision that rocked the agency’s human spaceflight program, NASA sent the Starliner back to Earth without its crew.

Wilmore and Williams will instead return to Crew Dragon which was released on Saturday. Two other astronauts, Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov, are inside the craft as it flies to the ISS. Wilmore and Williams will join their mission, called Crew-9, and complete their months-planned tour of the station.

That means Wilmore and Williams come home in February at the earliest.

Their mission was originally planned for about eight days, though NASA officials said that was a tentative timeline because they were conducting a test flight.

SpaceX beat Boeing in this space race

SpaceX and Boeing developed and flew their respective spacecraft through the same NASA initiative, the Commercial Crew Program.

One was much cheaper, though. NASA gave Boeing $4.2 billion to prepare the Starliner space station and gave SpaceX $2.6 billion for Crew Dragon.

Plus, SpaceX did it faster. Crew Dragon successfully flew its first astronauts four years ago and has been ferrying people to and from the ISS ever since.

The commercial crew program was never a competition, NASA officials said. But SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk mockingly highlighted the differences in an X post ahead of Williams and Wilmore’s launch aboard the Starliner.

Boeing’s deal with NASA is a fixed-price contract, meaning the company had to cover all additional expenses. With multiple technical problems and delays throughout the spacecraft’s development, according to SpaceNews, Boeing lost about $1.6 billion on the Starliner.

Starliner’s fate is unclear. NASA has not yet announced whether the spacecraft will need additional testing to make it eligible for regular astronaut rotations.

The unmanned return of the Starliner was a success

The Starliner landed in the New Mexico desert under parachutes on September 6.

Steve Stich, head of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, later said the astronauts would have been “safe” to return aboard the Starliner.

Hindsight, of course, is twenty-twenty.

“If we had a model that perfectly predicted what we saw tonight, yes, it seems like an easy decision to say that we could have had a fight with the crew,” Stich said after the Starliner landed. “But we didn’t have that.”

Astronauts left behind

Meanwhile, two NASA astronauts who were supposed to be part of the Crew-9 mission had to stay behind.

Instead of launching with their crewmates on Saturday, Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson watched from the ground.

Crew-9 would have been Cardman’s first spaceflight and Wilson’s fourth. But their Crew Dragon seats are empty because NASA is reserving them for Williams and Wilmore when the spacecraft returns to Earth next year.

In an X post, Cardman said handing over the ship to The Hague was “both heartbreaking and an honour”.

She wishes they could all fly together, she added, “but we choose without hesitation to be part of something much bigger than ourselves.”

Cardman appeared during NASA’s live broadcast of the launch on Saturday, when he called the situation “bittersweet.”

“It’s bittersweet, but it’s a really beautiful thing,” she said. “Any release is a testament to the power of collaboration – this release, perhaps even more so than usual.”

Wilson, who also appeared during the live broadcast, praised Hague and Gorbunov.

“They have trained for this moment and are ready to execute the mission,” she said.

In the meantime, the two Starliner astronauts will continue to work full-time performing experiments and maintenance on the ISS.

In a call with reporters on Sept. 13, Williams said she missed her two dogs, and Wilmore said she will miss most of her daughter’s senior year of high school. But both were adamant that it was all part of the job.

“It’s a very risky business and things don’t always go your way,” Wilmore said.

“90 percent of our training is preparing for the unexpected,” he added. “Because we push the envelope in everything we do, and it’s not easy.”