NASA considers sending Boeing Starliner astronauts home on SpaceX Dragon
"We're in a kind of a new situation here."
![a grey cone-shaped spacecraft in the foreground with a blue-and-white earth behind it](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/94jSF7mBwf7Y23XakJe4wk-320-80.jpg)
Boeing Starliner may not bring its first astronauts home after all.
NASA officials, absent a representative from Boeing, updated reporters today (Aug. 7) about how troubleshooting Starliner's undocking and landing may affect the next SpaceX astronaut flight to the International Space Station.
Starliner has faced a lot of difficulties since launching its first astronaut mission, most especially after 5 of its 28 reaction control thrusters (RCS) misfired during docking with the ISS on June 6. Work on the matter is ongoing, and as NASA revealed yesterday (Aug. 6), it will require the next launch to the ISS to wait. Crew-9, SpaceX's ninth operational flight to the ISS designed for four astronauts, will now launch Sept. 24 instead of Aug. 18. That's because NASA may send only two astronauts up on Crew-9, and bring the Starliner astronauts with the two returning crew sometime around February 2025.
Crew Flight Test (CFT), that Starliner mission, launched June 5 with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. They were in large part selected due to their developmental experience as former U.S. Navy test pilots.
The duo was supposed to stay in space for roughly 10 days, but it now has been north of 60 and counting. NASA continues to emphasize the astronauts can leave the ISS if an emergency arises, but agency officials sound less certain now that the astronauts will come home on Starliner, as the mission plan called for.
"We're in a kind of a new situation here, in that we've got multiple options," Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA's space operations mission directorate and a former agency astronaut, said during the briefing. "We don't just have to bring a crew back on Starliner, for example. We could bring them back on another vehicle."
That vehicle may very well be SpaceX. The sticking point is better understanding if and how apparent failures in thrusters on Starliner will affect its undocking and return to Earth. The descent back to our planet may again overtax the RCS system, some at NASA say. And not everyone yet agrees on the apparent cause, which CFT engineers have said may be overheating in "doghouse" shelters over clusters of RCS thrusters, which in turn causes thruster insulation to shed.
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Related: SpaceX's Crew-9 astronaut launch delayed to Sept. 24 due to Boeing Starliner issues
Additionally to the apparent insulation shedding, a poppet valve in Starliner's thrusters has been "heating up and extruding and [...] contracting" in ground testing, NASA commercial crew program manager Steve Stich said today.
Different members of NASA's program control board have different interpretations of the root cause of the thruster issues, and the risk to the astronauts. Stich framed the discussion as a problem of physics, as well as reliability, as the behavior of the RCS system — and any leftover effects from the shedding or poppet behavior — is not firmly quantified after all the testing.
Starliner can still safely undock from ISS, he said, but how its thrusters would behave on the ride home is uncertain. Knowing more about why the RCS and the poppet is acting this way, Stich said, "would give us additional confidence to move forward to return Butch and Suni on this vehicle."
He added that NASA has put a call out for additional propulsion experts across other divisions, such as the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to see if they can spot anything Boeing and agency CFT engineers may have missed in extensive ground and space testing.
Should the program control board continue to disagree and no convincing data comes forward, decision for Starliner's flight rationale would then go to Bowersox, whose authority is delegated to NASA administrator Bill Nelson. Final authority rests with Nelson himself.
"The administrator ultimately takes responsibility and and has a very important concern and responsibility for the final decision," Bowersox said. Notably, Nelson was on the last space shuttle flight 10 days before the fatal Challenger launch in 1986, and has spoken openly about the devastating effect that had on him.
Related: Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates
Should Crew-9 launch as planned, the astronauts are commander Zena Cardman, pilot Nick Hague, mission specialist Stephanie Wilson and mission specialist Alexsandr Gorbunov. Cardman, Hague and Wilson are all with NASA, and Gorbunov is a cosmonaut with Russia's space agency, Roscosmos.
It appears NASA is still mulling over program-level staffing decisions if Crew-9 drops to two people instead of four. "We're not ready to share specific crew names for the contingency plan," ISS program manager Dana Weigel told Space.com. She also didn't specify (when asked) about effects on the arrangement with Roscosmos and other space agencies for Crew-9 or future missions.
After another reporter asked what would happen to the two astronauts removed from Crew-9, Weigel said the "specific details" are still being determined. "We'll go look at future manifests and just see what what makes sense for the overall crew compliments going forward," Weigel added.
Regardless of who is on board, per a task order issued by NASA, SpaceX Crew-9 could launch with two astronauts and two seats filled with mass simulators to account for the empty seats. Crew-9 would stay docked to ISS for a normal six-month mission, with Williams and Wilmore returning early next year in the two leftover seats.
Weigel emphasized the CFT astronauts are "fully trained" for a normal ISS rotation, and that was planned two years ago knowing a developmental flight may very well extend for months. NASA even has appropriately sized spacesuits on board for the CFT astronauts, in case a need for extravehicular activity arises. The ISS also has a four-month contingency of supplies that the CFT astronauts have been using for matters such as food and oxygen.
Other ripples to the ISS schedule are happening as well. Starliner will undock at some point, whether crewed or uncrewed, to make way for Crew-9 at the ISS Harmony module. Crew-8 will stay on board a little longer as it is expected to leave about a week past Crew-9's arrival, whenever that happens. SpaceX also has been tasked with delaying its 31st Cargo Dragon to the ISS to no earlier than mid-October.
SpaceX and Boeing are the two commercial crew providers for NASA, tasked in 2014 with sending astronauts regularly to the ISS after the space shuttle's retirement in 2011. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft stepped into the launching gap for ISS missions until SpaceX sent its first astronaut test mission to space successfully in 2020.
SpaceX, unlike Boeing, had its Cargo Dragon design to build upon when launching Crew Dragon. Starliner is an all-new spacecraft design, and faced issues on two uncrewed test flights in 2019 and 2022. The first mission did not reach the ISS at all after a computer glitch; the second made it, but after thruster issues of its own. Teams thought they had solved those 2022 thruster issues before authorizing the 2024 CFT launch.
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Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller?", is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and a Bachelor of History from Canada's Athabasca University. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science at several institutions since 2015; her experience includes developing and teaching an astronomy course at Canada's Algonquin College (with Indigenous content as well) to more than 1,000 students since 2020. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace
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fj.torres Seriously?Reply
Thermal expansion issues?
Where did they source their parts? Joe's salvage on eBay?
After the flamable wiring tape they didn't think to go through the bill of materials?
And here I thought Andy Griffith's SALVAGE 1 was ridiculous even for Hollywood.
Go figure. -
Brad I wanted to believe in Boeing, I really really wanted to believe in Boeing. You pretty much lost me at this point. They had ample time and more than ample funding to do this job and they still couldn't get it done. Ugh another great US company destroyed.Reply -
Canadian
For sure, the astronauts are going to get a lot of money, with the overtime.fj.torres said:Seriously?
Thermal expansion issues?
Where did they source their parts? Joe's salvage on eBay?
After the flamable wiring tape they didn't think to go through the bill of materials?
And here I thought Andy Griffith's SALVAGE 1 was ridiculous even for Hollywood.
Go figure. -
bwana4swahili
Gotta love it! And SpaceX is laughing all the way to the bank!!Admin said:As Starliner's planned 10-day mission stretches past two months, the next ISS SpaceX launch will now delay into September to give NASA the option of including the Starliner crew on its ride home.
NASA could send Boeing Starliner astronauts home on SpaceX Dragon : Read more -
Ebonheart I suppose they could repurpose the Axiom Dragon for a second ISS Flight, at Boeing's expense, of course.Reply -
ZZTOP
Laughing at what, every one of their Earthships blew upbwana4swahili said:Gotta love it! And SpaceX is laughing all the way to the bank!! -
Wyggyn Boeing...The manufacturer that helped us win WWII, the same manufacturer that gave us the mighty F1 engine...this. Instead of focusing on your strengths, you intentionally looked away from the ball... this.Reply -
fj.torres
Much like Intel, they got fat dumb, and *stingy* and forgot about quality control in the quest for cost savings. They pushed out the techies in favor of MBAs because "managing is managing" and if you can manage a lemonade stand you can manage a tech company. Riiighhttt...Wyggyn said:Boeing...The manufacturer that helped us win WWII, the same manufacturer that gave us the mighty F1 engine...this. Instead of focusing on your strengths, you intentionally looked away from the ball... this. -
DrRaviSharma It is not a total surprise hence and now all combinations will figure in decision.Reply
However Suni and Butch need to be safe and they can test fire the thrusters autonomously (uncrewed )on Starliner's way home if JPL review does not yield anything new that has not already been discovered.
Another caution, we need at least one option more for domestic LEO and CISLUNAR human capability as we learned from untimely retirement of the Shuttle.
Hope we archive all knowledge used since Apollo-Saturn era to reference back if required.