NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have been stranded on the International Space Station for nearly two months due to problems with the propellant and a helium leak in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
It looks more and more like SpaceX may have to step in and bring them home. The company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft has been successfully flying astronauts to and from the ISS for years.
“We have two different systems that we’re flying,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said at a press conference Thursday. He was referring to SpaceX’s Boeing Starliner and Crew Dragon.
“Obviously, the fallback is to use another system,” Stich added. “I’d rather not get into all those details until we get to that time, if we ever get to that time.”
SpaceX sent astronauts into space much faster than Boeing
A Crew Dragon approaches the International Space Station with astronauts on board. NASA
The Commercial Crew program funded SpaceX and Boeing to develop their respective spacecraft into reliable astronaut vehicles for NASA.
SpaceX did it much faster and cheaper. Crew Dragon completed its first astronaut flight in 2020. Starliner is making its first astronaut flight now.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, even tweeted about the disparity on Williams and Wilmore’s launch day.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, blasted Boeing when it first launched the Starliner. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
“Too many non-technical managers at Boeing,” he wrote further X.
How long is the Boeing astronaut crew stuck?
When the astronauts arrived aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 6, they were supposed to stay on the space station for about eight days.
Their mission is a test flight, after all, and they are the first crew of the spacecraft. The goal was just to fly there, leave the spacecraft docked at the station for a week for testing, and return to Earth, proving that the Starliner was up to the task.
“We kept saying ‘minimum eight-day mission.’ I think we all knew it was going to take longer than that. We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about how long,” said Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of the Commercial Crew program at Boeing. Thursday’s conference.
“I’m sorry we didn’t just say, ‘We’re going to stay up there until we do everything we want to do,'” Nappi said.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, in which Williams and Wilmore flew, docked at the space station 262 miles above Egypt. NASA
NASA had set a maximum of 45 days for the Starliner’s stay, based on how well its batteries could perform in space.
As of Friday, the astronauts and their spacecraft had been at the station for 51 days.
Now NASA says Williams and Wilmore can stay there until mid-August while Boeing’s troubleshooting continues. The agency has extended the battery removal from 45 days to 90 days.
“We don’t have a big announcement today about a return date. We’re making great progress, but we’re just not ready to do that,” Stich said at the conference.
NASA’s plan to bring astronauts home
It was the second press conference in about a week where NASA announced it did not yet have a return date.
That’s because the agency is testing a spare Starliner thruster at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, and it’s not finished yet. Engineers have repeated the thruster problems that developed while Williams and Wilmore’s spacecraft was en route to the space station.
The next step is to repeat the return trip, Stitch said, to see if the Starliner’s thrusters can safely bring the astronauts home.
“NASA always has contingencies. We know a little bit about what they are, and we haven’t worked with them a whole bunch, but kind of what they are,” Stich said. “But right now we’re really focused on getting Butch and Suni home on the Starliner.”
Meanwhile, NASA and Boeing have repeatedly said Williams and Wilmore are safe.
“One day the Starliner could be a backup for a Dragon mission,” Stich added.