After more than two months of tests and discussions, NASA has determined that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return to Earth in February 2025 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon. The Boeing Starliner, which ferried them to the International Space Station in June, will make its return journey uncrewed. During a press conference on Saturday, Steve Stich, manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, explained that “there was too much uncertainty” surrounding the predictions for Starliner’s thrusters to proceed with a crewed return flight.
The revised plan entails that Starliner’s first crew will come back with SpaceX’s Crew-9, which is set to launch to the ISS at the end of September. Initially, Crew-9 was supposed to carry four crew members, but will now proceed with two, allowing space for Wilmore and Williams for the return trip. The spacecraft is currently being reconfigured with additional seats for the two astronauts, and Dragon spacesuits will be added to its cargo for their homecoming. By the time Wilmore and Williams depart, they will have spent approximately eight months aboard the space station. Originally, the Starliner flight test was intended to last slightly over a week.
The subsequent step involves preparing Starliner for undocking and concluding its mission as an uncrewed flight test. NASA plans to conduct the second part of its readiness review for this process in the coming week, with the undocking anticipated to occur around the beginning of next month. “We are modifying the separation sequence we had planned and will review these aspects during the readiness review,” said Stich. “We’re adopting a simplified separation technique to expedite departure from the station.”
The difficulties with Starliner’s thrusters have been “very complex,” Stich mentioned, with their performance being “challenging to predict.” Without the ability to accurately forecast thruster performance from undocking through the deorbit burn, the potential risks posed to the astronauts were deemed too great, Stich elaborated.
“We have made mistakes in the past,” stated NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “We have lost two space shuttles due to a lack of a culture where information could surface.” Bearing this context in mind, he continued, “We have encouraged all our employees that if they have any objections, to come forward. Spaceflight is inherently risky, even under the safest and most routine conditions, and a test flight by its nature is neither safe nor routine. Hence, the decision to keep Butch and Suni on the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner back uncrewed reflects our commitment to safety.”
