NASA decided Saturday that the two astronauts who have been stuck at the International Space Station since June will not return to Earth on Boeing's new capsule because it is too risky. They will instead be brought home on a SpaceX capsule in 2025.
Administrator Bill Nelson and other top officials met in Houston to determine if Boeing’s capsule was safe enough to bring the astronauts home.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing's Starliner on June 5 in what was supposed to be a weeklong test flight. It quickly encountered thruster failures and helium leaks so serious that NASA kept the capsule parked at the station as engineers debated what to do.
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SpaceX will not be able to retrieve them until next February. Boeing’s Starliner will return to Earth empty in September on autopilot.
“A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,” said NASA Administration Bill Nelson. “And so the decision ... is a commitment to safety.”
“This has not been an easy decision, but it is absolutely the right one,” added NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free.
Boeing said earlier this month that extensive testing of thrusters in space and on the ground demonstrated Starliner's ability to safely return the astronauts.
Boeing did not participate in Saturday's news conference by NASA but released a statement: “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”
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It was the company's first astronaut flight, delayed for years by a multitude of capsule problems. Two previous Starliner test flights had no one on board.
NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX a decade ago, after the space shuttles retired, to ferry its astronauts to and from the station. SpaceX has been at it since 2020.
Retired Navy captains with previous long-duration spaceflight experience, Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, anticipated surprises when they accepted the shakedown cruise of a new spacecraft, although not quite to this extent.
The SpaceX capsule currently parked at the space station is reserved for the four residents who have been there since March. They will return in late September, their stay extended a month by the Starliner dilemma. NASA said it would be unsafe to squeeze two more into the capsule, except in an emergency.
The docked Russian Soyuz capsule is even tighter, capable of flying only three — two of them Russians wrapping up a yearlong stint.
So Wilmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX's next taxi flight. It’s due to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four for a routine six-month stay. NASA yanked two to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight in late February.