The Starliner will fly back to Earth without astronauts. Photo: Boeing

In a press conference on August 24, NASA announced that after carefully assessing the situation, NASA and Boeing engineers could not agree on whether it was safe to send astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back on the malfunctioning Starliner spacecraft. As a result, they decided that the crew would stay on the ISS until February 2025, when SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft will dock with the station and take them home, according to New Atlas.

The Starliner project has been years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget after a decade of development. Starliner also suffered a series of last-minute aborts before its first human mission on May 6, 2024, from Cape Canaveral Space Station on an Atlas V rocket. There had been concerns about the mission due to a helium leak in the thruster system, but officials determined that this was not a major problem. However, after takeoff, five thrusters failed and there was an issue with the oxygen valve. Starliner remained docked with the ISS, but Wilmore and Williams' eight-day flight was turned into seven months.

Notably, the alternative route was taken by Boeing's rival SpaceX, which has flown multiple human and cargo flights to the ISS and is preparing for its first private spacewalk this week. The future of Starliner is a big question mark because the decision will create a series of ripple effects that will need to be resolved in the near future.

The most obvious issue is the need to make room on the Dragon for the pair of astronauts. The other two astronauts will have to postpone their flight next February to make room. There’s also the issue of the spacesuits Wilmore and Williams will have to deal with. The Starliner suits are based on older NASA designs, while the SpaceX suits are a new, cutting-edge design. As a result, the Boeing suits don’t fit the SpaceX seats, and the life support and communications equipment don’t fit. Even more troubling is that the SpaceX suits are custom-made for the astronauts wearing them. Unless something is done to modify the SpaceX suits for the Starliner astronauts, the pair risk flying back to Earth in short sleeves.

With the Starliner, the onboard computers will need to be reprogrammed to allow it to detach from the ISS and fly back to Earth autonomously. Experts fear that the malfunctioning spacecraft could jam the docking mechanism, leaving the station with fewer ports for other spacecraft. Officials are also uncertain whether Starliner can reenter the atmosphere with a faulty booster. Boeing engineers want to recover the capsule for research, but if landing is too risky, instructing Starliner to burn up in the atmosphere above the South Pacific Ocean may be necessary. Finally, adding two people to the ISS means adding supplies at a cost of about $20,000 per kilogram.


An Khang (New Atlas)