Stranded astronauts will return on SpaceX, not Boeing Starliner

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson delivered the news during a briefing on Saturday, ending months of speculation about how long the astronauts would remain in limbo.

Instead, Starliner will return to Earth from the ISS without a crew, allowing NASA and Boeing to determine the root causes of its failures so it can continue to serve as part of the space agency’s plans to maintain access to the ISS, it added he.

“Spaceflight is risky even in the safest and most routine. And a test flight by their very nature is neither safe nor routine,” Nelson said, adding that “our core value is safety and it’s the North Star.”

The two astronauts have been aboard the ISS since June, while the original plan was for the mission to last only eight days. The test flight marked the first time Boeing’s Starliner carried astronauts after previous tests were scrapped.

But a helium leak and Starliner thruster malfunctions kept them in space for months while NASA and Boeing considered ways to get them back. Despite the several-month delay, NASA has maintained that the astronauts are not “stuck” on the ISS.

“The bottom line with bringing Starliner back is that there was too much uncertainty in the prediction of the propellants,” Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew program, said Saturday, showing the decoupling procedure, de-orbit burn and separation sequence. “It was too much of a risk for the crew.”

The Starliner will break down and land in early September. Meanwhile, the SpaceX mission that will bring Williams and Wilmore back — dubbed Crew 9 — is set to launch in late September with two astronauts, leaving two more slots available for Williams and Wilmore, according to NASA.

They will return months later, pushing their total time in space to eight months if all goes according to plan. With their additional time in orbit, Williams and Wilmore will continue to conduct experiments and maintenance.

“Boeing continues to focus primarily on crew and spacecraft safety,” a company spokesman said in a statement. “We are executing the mission as determined by NASA and preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful unmanned return.”

While NASA’s choice to use a SpaceX capsule instead of the Starliner is a blow to Boeing, Norm Knight, NASA’s director of space flight operations, said the Starliner is a “robust” vehicle with “excellent flight qualities” and worked well overall.

On August 2, Boeing said it was confident its spacecraft would be able to return to Williams and Wilmore. But on August 7, NASA revealed that talks had evolved, saying it was more seriously considering SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle, which carries astronauts to and from the ISS for four years.

When asked Saturday how NASA can rebuild trust with Boeing, NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said there is no trust issue.

“I think we look at the data and see the data and the uncertainty that exists differently than Boeing,” he said. “It’s not a matter of trust. We have to balance our technical expertise and our experience.”

Ken Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, acknowledged there were plenty of tense discussions. “So people have an emotional investment in either option, and that gives you a healthy discourse.”

Nelson said he is “100 percent” sure Boeing will launch another crewed mission on Starliner in the future, citing the working relationship between NASA and the company.

But complicating NASA’s decision Saturday to use SpaceX is the fact that the spacesuits Wilmore and Williams have are compatible with the Starliner, but not the Dragon capsule.

Stich said there is already a spacesuit on the ISS that one of the astronauts can use for the return trip, and the Crew 9 mission will bring another suit.

This is a feature of a major shift in NASA strategy launched a decade ago, when the space agency decided to rely more on the burgeoning private sector industry.

After the space shuttle fleet was retired, NASA awarded fixed-cost contracts to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 to carry astronauts to and from space. Boeing’s contract was for $4.2 billion, and SpaceX’s for $2.6 billion.

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