According to NASA, astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore are set to return to Earth next year early after riding to the space station in June on the troubled Starliner capsule built by Boeing.
NASA will now bring the Boeing Starliner back to Earth without the crew after all. This will give NASA and Boeing more opportunities to continue evaluating data collection with the Starliner on its way home with less risk to the crew.
NASA wrote in a post on X, "Following rigorous review by teams across the agency, NASA's @BoeingSpace Crew Flight Test will fly again without crew on board. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are now slated to fly to space next spring."
According to NASA's release, the two astronauts have been busy supporting station research, maintenance, and testing data analysis that is necessary for the Starliner since they arrived at the ISS in June.
As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, "Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and most routine. A test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine.". The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring Boeing's Starliner home uncrewed was made for one simple reason: our commitment to safety—our core value, our North Star." For his part, Nelson expressed thanks thus: "I'm grateful to both the NASA and Boeing teams for all their incredible and detailed work."
Wilmore and Williams will stay on the Expedition 71/72 mission until February 2025. They will return in the Dragon with two other members of the SpaceX Crew-9 space mission. NASA noted that the Starliner would leave the space station to autonomously re-enter Earth's atmosphere and land in early September.
In fact, NASA and Boeing made a final identification of the helium leaks and problems with the spacecraft's reaction control thrusters on 6 June as Starliner was approaching the space station. Since then, a lot has been done: data reviewing, flight and ground testing, independent reviews with agency propulsion experts, and developing different contingency plans.
The astronauts will now be moved to the Crew-9 mission, NASA said, since there are uncertainties and no expert consensus on safety and performance.
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