NASA considers keeping Boeing astronauts on space station until February

NASA is considering keeping the two astronauts who flew in the Boeing capsule to the International Space Station there until February as a result of problems with the spacecraft. found mid-flight.

The agency said Wednesday that it is still evaluating options on how to bring NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth safely, and that no plans have been made yet. But officials have acknowledged more openly than before that they may decide to use a SpaceX capsule.

“Our main option is to return Butch and Suni on the Starliner,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said Wednesday at a press conference. “However, we have done the necessary planning to ensure we have other options open, and so we have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond.”

Wilmore and Williams arrived at the space station on June 6 at first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. The initial plan called for them to remain in space for about a week. But problems with five of Starliner’s thrusters and helium leaking from the capsule’s propulsion system left astronauts stranded there for more than two months while engineers on the ground collected data on the problems and tried to troubleshoot them.

The mission was designed to be the final step before the agency could certify Boeing to perform routine crewed flights to and from the ISS. The fate of that process is now up in the air.

NASA has not offered any potential timeline for when astronauts might return if they travel back in the Boeing capsule, but Stich said a final decision will likely need to be made by mid-August.

Meanwhile, the launch of one of SpaceX’s Dragon capsules — which was scheduled to launch four new crew members to the space station later this month — has been delayed to give NASA and Boeing more time to deal with the problem. Starliner problems.

The SpaceX mission (known as Crew-9) is about a month late. NASA officials said they could alter the plan and send two crew members into space in that vehicle instead of four, and then use the capsule to bring Wilmore and Williams home.

Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, said there have been disagreements over how to bring astronauts home safely.

“I have to admit that sometimes when we disagree, it’s not fun,” Bowersox said. “It can be painful to have these discussions, but it’s what makes us a good organization and it’s what will lead us to a good decision as we get closer to this point here in the future. And I don’t think we’re too far away from making that decision.”

In the event that Wilmore and Williams return home in a different vehicle, mission managers could make software adjustments to the Starliner and undock it from the space station and return to Earth without a crew, according to Stich.

Boeing officials did not participate in the briefing, but a company representative said in a statement: “We still believe in the Starliner’s capabilities and its flight logic.”

“If NASA decides to change the mission, we will take the necessary steps to configure Starliner for an unmanned return,” the statement said.

Problems with the thrusters arose as Starliner approached the space station in June, forcing delays during the docking process. Meanwhile, helium leaks were already on mission managers’ radar before liftoff. They said at the time that the leaks were unlikely to affect the mission or astronauts’ safety.

NASA and Boeing engineers have been trying to replicate conditions in orbit in a test engine at the agency’s White Sands Test Center in New Mexico. Mission managers also conducted two “hot fire tests” in spacefiring the capsule’s thrusters in short bursts while it remained docked to the space station.

Stich said Wednesday that tests revealed that a small Teflon seal appears to swell under high temperatures and may be partly responsible for the propellant problems. When the seal expands, it likely blocks propellant flow to the thrusters, he said.

More testing is needed to understand the possible blockages and why they were not detected during the most recent hot fire test. Last week, NASA reported that the thrusters, which are used to maneuver the spacecraft into orbit and guide it into position before plunging into Earth’s atmosphere, appeared stable.

“This gives us a lot of confidence in the thrusters, but we cannot prove for sure that what we are seeing in orbit is exactly what has been replicated on the ground,” Stich said.

The recent Starliner saga was a blow to Boeing, especially since the program was already years behind schedule and more than $1.5 billion over budget before the astronauts were launched.

Boeing and SpaceX developed their space capsules as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program — an initiative that began more than a decade ago to support private companies in building new space vehicles to take astronauts to low-Earth orbit. The program followed the retirement of NASA’s space shuttles.

SpaceX has been transporting astronauts to the International Space Station since 2020.

This article was originally published in NBCNews. with