Boeing Starliner astronauts will return home on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule

NASA has announced that astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams will return to Earth next February aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.

Announcement at today’s press conference ends month belong to speculation about the best plan to bring astronauts home safely after their trip went wrong, Boeing aircraft‘s Starliner spacecraft has postponed its departure from International Space Station in June. Now, NASA has decided that Starliner will return home without Wilmore and Williams, who will stay with the station’s current crew and return on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission next year.

“Boeing has worked very hard with NASA to get the data we need to make this decision,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at a press conference. “We want to better understand the root cause and understand the design improvements that will make the Boeing Starliner a critical part of ensuring our crews can access the ISS.”

Wilmore and Williams launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on June 5, became the first astronaut to conduct a manned test flight of the Starliner, a spacecraft developed by Boeing to carry people to and from the ISS.

During the approach to the station, five of Starliner’s 28 thrusters failed. The crew was able to recover four of them and safely docked with the station, where they discovered that Starliner’s thruster system was also leaking helium from multiple locations.

Wilmore and Williams were originally scheduled to stay on the ISS for about a week before returning to Earth on the Starliner. But their return was postponed. delayed for more than two months as mission planners struggle to determine the cause of the thruster failure and assess the risks of using Starliner for the flight home. NASA’s plan would see them stay on the ISS for a total of eight months, longer than the usual six-month stay but not unprecedented.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have stressed that Wilmore and Williams were not “trapped” nor in any danger. Likewise, the astronauts have publicly viewed the extended stay as a blessing that allowed them to accumulate more time in space.

“We’re having a great time here on the ISS,” Williams told reporters. in a call in July from the ISS. “You know, Butch and I have been up here before, and it feels like coming home. It feels great to be floating around. It feels great to be in space and working here with the International Space Station team.”

Cargo ships regularly dock at the ISS, providing enough supplies for the entire crew on board, and NASA considers Starliner safe enough for astronauts to use in the event of an emergency evacuation from the ISS.

Starliner has flown twice before without astronauts; it failed to reach the station on its first unmanned test flight in 2019, but it did successfully cross Second test 2022 by docking with the ISS and landing back at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. This is the second vehicle, after SpaceX The Dragon spacecraft carries astronauts to the space station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which aims to develop commercial spacecraft to transport crews to and from the ISS.

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft completed its first crewed test flight in 2020, earning certification from NASA to conduct regular operational flights with astronauts. Over the past four years, Dragon has successfully ferried dozens of crews to and from the ISS. Between the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle in 2011 and Dragon’s first crewed mission in 2020, NASA and other agencies relied entirely on Russia’s Soyuz shuttle to ferry their astronauts to the station. The commercial crew program is designed to support ISS operations with multiple spacecraft transport options in the event of a failure.

Starliner is no stranger to setbacks; many previous tests of the spacecraft have been plagued by delays and the project lost more over $1.5 billion in overspending.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.