Boeing Starliner astronauts have now been in space more than 60 days with no end in sight

 

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — two veteran NASA astronauts piloting the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft — have now been in space for 63 days, roughly seven weeks longer than initially expected.

There is still no clear return date in sight, and NASA is now making clear that the astronauts may not come home on Starliner at all.

SpaceX, Boeing’s rival under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, may be tapped to bring Williams and Wilmore home instead. The move could potentially extend the astronauts’ stay on the International Space Station by another six months, pushing their return into 2025, agency officials said in a news conference Wednesday.

The comments from NASA leaders indicate a stunning change of tone for the space agency. Until now, officials have repeatedly indicated that Williams and Wilmore were likely to return home on Starliner, and a backup scenario involving Crew Dragon was mentioned as a mere possibility. Wednesday’s update, however, suggests the SpaceX vehicle is rapidly becoming a serious option.

“I would say that our chances of an uncrewed Starliner return have increased a little bit based on where things have gone over the last week or two,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, referring to NASA’s internal review processes that needs to be completed before a return date for Starliner is set. “But again, new data coming in, new analysis, different discussion — we could find ourselves shift in another way.”

Boeing’s propulsion woes

CNN confirmed on Tuesday that NASA has not yet started a “flight readiness review” for the Starliner crew’s return from the space station. The agency had said on July 26 that it would begin that process in the first couple days of August.

But Boeing and NASA teams are still working on a potential return date for the mission that launched June 5, as officials evaluate testing data and conduct analyses about the propulsion issues and helium leaks that hampered the first leg of the Starliner capsule’s flight.

-CNN

And do you remember

Ripped from Space by Glen Brown

From May 19, 1991 to March 25, 1992, (311 Days) Sergei Krikalev, a cosmonaut, remained in space because there was not enough money to bring him back to earth. During that time, the Soviet Union collapsed, and a new Russia was born. For this, Krikalev is sometimes called The Last Soviet Citizen.…After a 10-month marathon… the fellow who couldn’t even score some honey was finally home.   —from a news story

When Sergei Krikalev returned 
to the barren steppes of Kazakhstan, 
reeking of horseradish and lemons, 
he knew he had traveled the length 
of more than one revolution,
that he had come back a galactic victim  

of economic relativity to a world

now bewitched by a game of Wolfenstein  
instead of a game of ninepin, 
while he had orbited 200 miles above the earth.

When he heard the yoke of communism had broken,  
that his space station nearly sold  
to the highest bidder,  
his knees locked together; his eyes rolled back. 

So, they set him down in a wooden chair 
to take his pulse and wipe his brow.
And after they weatherproofed him  
with fur to riffle back the wind  
that gray day in spring,  
he rubbed his eyes like Rip Van Winkle,  
not knowing another revolution had taken place 
where he now found himself whilst the lone loyal subject  
lost in liberty, moonstruck with the thought  
that he could finally score 
honey in some place unlike heaven.

“Ripped from Space” was originally published in Elf in 1993 and later in Hum If You Can't Sing, a book by Glen Brown in 2023.