NASA on Saturday (August 24) announced that astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who are in the Space for 80 days, will return to the Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) in February 2025.
“A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,” said NASA Administrator 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 Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator.
The two NASA astronauts who flew to the International Space Station in June this year aboard Boeing's faulty Starliner capsule will need to return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle early next year, NASA said, deeming issues with Starliner's propulsion system too risky to carry its first crew home.
The agency's decision, tapping Boeing's top space rival to return the astronauts, is one of NASA's most consequential in years. Boeing had hoped the test mission would redeem the Starliner program after years of development problems and over USD1.6 billion in budget overruns since 2016. Boeing is also struggling with quality issues on production of commercial planes, its most important products.
Veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, both former military test pilots, became the first crew to ride Starliner on June 5 when they were launched to the ISS for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission.
But Starliner's propulsion system suffered a series of glitches beginning in the first 24 hours of its flight to the ISS, triggering months of cascading delays. Five of its 28 thrusters failed and it sprang several leaks of helium, which is used to pressurise the thrusters.
In a rare reshuffling of NASA's astronaut operations, the two astronauts are now expected to return in February 2025 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft due to launch next month as part of a routine astronaut rotation mission. Two of the Crew Dragon's four astronaut seats will be kept empty for Wilmore and Williams.
(With Reuters inputs)
