The return to Earth of two US astronauts stranded on the International Space Station will be delayed until February because of problems with the new Boeing spacecraft meant to take them home.
Nasa has decided that Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore should instead return on a vessel made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, extending their planned eight-day mission to eight months.
The decision to avoid using the Boeing Starliner that flew the pair out raises questions for the company’s space ambitions, at a time when its core commercial aircraft operation is under intense pressure. It focuses attention on the difficulties of crewed space flight as countries and business people, including Musk, work on missions to the Moon and Mars.
What happened and what exactly has gone wrong?
The original plan was for the Starliner to take Williams and Wilmore to the ISS, dock and then bring them home after their short mission. But Nasa announced at the weekend that it would return the craft to Earth without the astronauts. This would allow Nasa and Boeing to collect more data on the Starliner without “accepting more risk than necessary” for its crew, the agency said.
The plan came after weeks of efforts to address problems identified during its outward voyage in June. The craft suffered three helium leaks and the failure of five reaction control system thrusters during its approach to the ISS, Nasa said.
The switch to an alternative plan came down to “needing a higher level of certainty to perform a crewed return”, said Steve Stich, manager of Nasa’s commercial crew programme.
The decision followed talks between Nasa and Boeing that one agency official described as “tense”. Nasa and the company took different views about the level of the uncertainty in the data, Jim Free, Nasa’s associate administrator, said at a weekend press conference.
Boeing said its focus was on safety, adding that it was “executing the mission as determined by Nasa” and preparing for a “safe and successful” uncrewed return to earth.
What is the new plan and how will the astronauts be supported?
Nasa’s new plan is to use a SpaceX Dragon craft to bring back Williams and Wilmore. Until then, they will work alongside regular ISS expeditionary crew for the remainder of their extended stay. The space station is supplied by crewed and cargo spacecraft, the most recent of which docked this month.
Williams and Wilmore have backgrounds in the US Navy and previous space experience, including ISS missions. Williams has been an ISS expedition commander and Wilmore piloted the space shuttle Atlantis voyage to the space station in 2009. They are trained in spacewalks, robotics and other skills needed to contribute to the work of the regular ISS mission, Nasa has said.
“SpaceX stands ready to support @NASA however we can,” its president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell posted on X.
On Monday, Musk posted that the company was “currently go” for the lift-off of the Polaris Dawn mission due to launch on Tuesday to carry out the first commercial spacewalk. The venture is funded by Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payment processor Shift4 Payments, who is one of the four crew members.
What are the risks and will this be the longest anyone has spent in space?
Space travel is physically and psychologically demanding. Nasa identifies “five hazards” that will face any crewed Mars mission — and confront all astronauts to varying degrees. They are space radiation; isolation and confinement; distance from Earth and the supply challenges it creates; changes in gravity and the impact on the body; and maintaining safe ecosystems in rockets and space stations.
The potential damage to the body caused by radiation from galactic cosmic rays and solar storms is a big challenge for cosmic exploration. The ISS’s low Earth orbit trajectory — at an average altitude of about 400km — means it receives some natural protection from the planet’s magnetic field. The facility also uses artificial shielding, such as the plastic polyethylene, around zones such as the sleeping quarters and galley, according to Nasa.
If Williams and Wilmore return as planned in February, their continuous stay will not be uniquely long. Frank Rubio of the US and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin concluded a 371-day ISS mission last year. They were delayed for similar reasons to Williams and Wilmore, after the Russian Soyuz craft that took them up developed a mechanical problem and was replaced by another vessel for the journey home.
The record for uninterrupted time spent in space is held by Russia’s Valery Polyakov, who spent 438 days on a mission to Russia’s Mir space station in 1994-95.
What does this mean for the Starliner and Boeing?
Nasa’s decision to turn to SpaceX to bring the astronauts home is a humiliating setback for Boeing. It caps a difficult eight months for the US manufacturer. It is under intense regulatory scrutiny over the quality and safety of its commercial aircraft manufacturing after the January mid-air blowout of a door panel on a 737 Max.
Boeing’s defence and space business has also been struggling financially, in part due to fixed-price contracts with Nasa and the Pentagon. The division incurred losses of $1.7bn in 2023.
The Starliner programme itself is several years late and over budget, although it represents only a small fraction of Boeing’s overall revenues.
The decision about what to do with the programme and whether to keep investing now rests with new chief executive Kelly Ortberg, who took over this month.
“This may be yet another reputational hit, but the serious customers will realise that Starliner’s woes are the result of a dysfunctional culture that will take time to be expunged,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, a consulting business.
What does this mean for crewed space flight and cosmic exploration?
Nasa is unlikely to give up on Boeing. The agency designed its commercial crew programme a decade ago with the aim of having two competing US companies to take its astronauts into space.
After the space shuttle fleet was retired, Nasa in 2014 awarded Boeing and SpaceX fixed-price contracts to ferry astronauts. On the cargo side, SpaceX and Northrop Grumman both have contracts with Nasa to deliver supplies to the ISS.
Boeing has historically played a crucial role in crewed Nasa space missions, including the Apollo moon landings. It secured a $4.2bn initial contract from the agency, compared with $2.6bn for SpaceX in 2014 — although Musk’s company has picked up orders subsequently. Another potential candidate is Sierra Space Corp, which lost out to Boeing and SpaceX a decade ago, but the launch of a cargo version of its vehicle has been hit by delays.
More broadly, the Starliner case shows the disruption that mechanical failures can cause even on a mission relatively near Earth. Hazards would be multiplied on missions to the Moon and, in particular, to Mars. The outward trip to the Red Planet might take nine months.
Visual journalism by Ian Bott and Aditi Bhandari
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