NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will close the hatches between Starliner and the space station on Thursday (September 5, 2024). 
| Photo Credit: AP

Boeing will attempt to return its problem-plagued capsule from the International Space Station later this week — with empty seats.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said on Wednesday (September 4, 2024) that everything is on track for the Starliner capsule to undock from the space station Friday evening. The fully automated capsule will aim for a touchdown in New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range six hours later.

NASA’s two stuck astronauts who flew up on Starliner will remain behind at the orbiting lab. They will ride home with SpaceX in February, eight months after launching on what should have been a weeklong test flight. Thruster trouble and helium leaks kept delaying their return until NASA decided that it was too risky for them to accompany Starliner back as originally planned.

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“It’s been a journey to get here and we’re excited to have Starliner return,” said NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich.

NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will close the hatches between Starliner and the space station on Thursday (September 5, 2024). They are now considered full-time station crew members along with the seven others on board, helping with experiments and maintenance and ramping up their exercise to keep their bones and muscles strong during their prolonged exposure to weightlessness.

To make room for them on SpaceX’s next taxi flight, the Dragon capsule will launch with two astronauts instead of the usual four. Two were cut late last week from the six-month expedition, which is due to blast off in late September. Boeing has to free up the parking place for SpaceX’s arrival.

Boeing encountered serious flaws with Starliner long before its June 5 liftoff on the long-delayed astronaut demo.

Starliner’s first test flight went so poorly in 2019 — the capsule never reached the space station because of software errors — that the mission was repeated three years later. More problems surfaced, resulting in even more delays and more than $1 billion in repairs.

Also Read: Explained | Significance of Boeing Starliner’s first crewed test flight on May 7,2024

The capsule had suffered multiple thruster failures and propulsion-system helium leaks by the time it pulled up at the space station after launch. Boeing conducted extensive thruster tests in space and on the ground and contended the capsule could safely bring the astronauts back. But NASA disagreed, setting the complex ride swap in motion.

Starliner will make a faster, simpler getaway than planned, using springs to push away from the space station and then short thruster firings to gradually increase the distance. The original plan called for an hour of dallying near the station, mostly for picture-taking; that was cut to 20 or so minutes to reduce the stress on the capsule’s thrusters and keep the station safe.

Additional test firings of Starliner’s 28 thrusters are planned before the all-important descent from orbit. Engineers want to learn as much as they can since the thrusters won’t return to Earth; the section containing them will be ditched before the capsule reenters.

The stuck astronauts — retired Navy captains — have lived on the space station before and settled in just fine, according to NASA officials. Even though their mission focus has changed, “they’re just as dedicated to the success of human spaceflight going forward,” flight director Anthony Vareha said.

The blue Boeing spacesuits will return with the capsule, along with some old station equipment.

NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX a decade ago to ferry its astronauts to and from the space station after its shuttles retired. SpaceX accomplished the feat in 2020 and has since launched nine crews for NASA and four for private customers.

In this photo provided by NASA, astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams inspect safety hardware aboard the International Space Station on August 9, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

NASA decided on Saturday (August 24, 2024) it’s too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule, and they’ll have to wait until next year for a ride home with SpaceX. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months.

The seasoned pilots have been stuck at the International Space Station since the beginning of June. A cascade of vexing thruster failures and helium leaks in the new capsule marred their trip to the space station, and they ended up in a holding pattern as engineers conducted tests and debated what to do about the trip back.

After almost three months, the decision finally came down from NASA’s highest ranks on Saturday (August 24, 2024). Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will come back in a SpaceX spacecraft in February. Their empty Starliner capsule will undock in early September and attempt to return on autopilot.

As Starliner’s test pilots, the pair should have overseen this critical last leg of the journey, with touchdown in the U.S. desert.

“A test flight by nature is neither safe nor routine,” said NASA Administration Bill Nelson. “And so the decision… is a commitment to safety.”

“This has not been an easy decision, but it is absolutely the right one,” added NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free.

It was a blow to Boeing, adding to the safety concerns plaguing the company on its airplane side. Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests both in space and on the ground.

Boeing did not participate in Saturday’s news conference by NASA but released a statement: “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”

Retired Navy captains with previous long-duration spaceflight experience, Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, anticipated surprises when they accepted the shakedown cruise of a new spacecraft, although not quite to this extent.

Before their June 5 launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, they said their families bought into the uncertainty and stress of their professional careers decades ago. During their lone orbital news conference last month, they said they had trust in the thruster testing being conducted. They had no complaints, they added, and enjoyed pitching in with space station work.

Wilmore’s wife, Deanna, was equally stoic in an interview earlier this month with WVLT-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, their home state. She was already bracing for a delay until next February: “You just sort of have to roll with it.”

There were few options.

The SpaceX capsule currently parked at the space station is reserved for the four residents who have been there since March. They will return in late September, their stay extended a month by the Starliner dilemma. NASA said it would be unsafe to squeeze two more into the capsule, except in an emergency.

The docked Russian Soyuz capsule is even tighter, capable of flying only three — two of them Russians wrapping up a yearlong stint.

So Wilmore and Williams will wait for SpaceX’s next taxi flight. It’s due to launch in late September with two astronauts instead of the usual four for a routine six-month stay. NASA yanked two to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the return flight in late February.

NASA said no serious consideration was given to asking SpaceX for a quick stand-alone rescue. Last year, the Russian Space Agency had to rush up a replacement Soyuz capsule for three men whose original craft was damaged by space junk. The switch pushed their mission beyond a year, a U.S. space endurance record still held by Frank Rubio.

Starliner’s woes began long before its latest flight.

Bad software fouled the first test flight without a crew in 2019, prompting a do-over in 2022. Then parachute and other issues cropped up, including a helium leak in the capsule’s propellant system that nixed a launch attempt in May. The leak eventually was deemed to be isolated and small enough to pose no concern. But more leaks sprouted following liftoff, and five thrusters also failed.

All but one of those small thrusters restarted in flight. But engineers remain perplexed as to why some thruster seals appear to swell, obstructing the propellant lines, then revert to their normal size.

These 28 thrusters are vital. Besides needed for space station rendezvous, they keep the capsule pointed in the right direction at flight’s end as bigger engines steer the craft out of orbit. Coming in crooked could result in catastrophe.

With the Columbia disaster still fresh in many minds — the shuttle broke apart during reentry in 2003, killing all seven aboard — NASA embraced open debate over Starliner’s return capability. Dissenting views were stifled during Columbia’s doomed flight, just as they were during Challenger’s in 1986.

Despite Saturday’s decision, NASA isn’t giving up on Boeing.

NASA went into its commercial crew program a decade ago wanting two competing U.S. companies ferrying astronauts in the post-shuttle era. Boeing won the bigger contract: more than $4 billion, compared with SpaceX’s $2.6 billion.

With station supply runs already under its belt, SpaceX aced its first of now nine astronaut flights in 2020, while Boeing got bogged down in design flaws that set the company back more than $1 billion. NASA officials still hold out hope that Starliner’s problems can be corrected in time for another crew flight in another year or so.