Starliner astronauts won't return home until at least March after latest NASA delay
NASA's Starliner astronauts have had their homecoming delayed yet again.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore weren't supposed to be at the International Space Station beyond a few days in June when they reached the orbital outpost on the inaugural flight test for Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. But their return was delayed multiple times until NASA finally decided in August that the safest route would be to send the pair back to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon vehicle in February.
Now, the veteran astronauts will be spending at least another month in orbit after NASA announced a delay Tuesday in launching the mission whose crew will replace them.
The astronauts who are part of a SpaceX mission known as Crew-10 are now slated to launch no earlier than late March. Once the fresh crew has arrived at the space station, the Crew-9 team that includes Wilmore and Williams will finally be able to depart.
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Crew-10 delayed for new SpaceX vehicle: Who is on the mission?
NASA delayed the Crew-10 launch in order to give SpaceX more time to prepare the new capsule for liftoff. The Dragon spacecraft is set to arrive in early January at the company’s processing facility in Florida, according to NASA, which considered using a different capsule to keep the flight on schedule.
“Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews."
The Crew-10 mission, the tenth SpaceX mission contracted by NASA to send astronauts to the space station for what tend to be six-month rotations, includes four spacefarers:
NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, of Colorado, mission pilot;
Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), a mission specialist;
Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, a mission specialist.
Williams, Wilmore to return on Crew-9 vehicle
The delay is the latest setback for a mission that encountered issues even before it managed to take off in June following two launch scrubs.
When it reached the International Space Station, what followed was the discovery of technical issues with the vehicle that ultimately ended with the craft forced to abandon the mission's astronauts and return to Earth without them. Instead, NASA decided that the responsibility of returning Starliner astronauts Wilmore and Williams would instead fall to Boeing's aerospace competitor, SpaceX.
Wilmore and Williams were then folded into the Crew-9 mission when the vehicle selected to bring the Starliner astronauts home, a SpaceX Dragon, then arrived at the end of the September with two extra spots reserved for them.
The Crew-9 mission, whose original members include NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, was originally slated to wrap up in February before NASA announced the delay. The crew will be able to return to Earth several days after Crew-10 arrives following a handover period.
NASA has continued to ensure that all Expedition 72 astronauts aboard the space station are provisioned with food, clothing and other necessities following recent resupply flights in November.
What's next for the Boeing Starliner?
The Boeing Starliner undocked autonomously Sept. 6 and managed to land just fine in New Mexico desert.
Boeing officials had high hopes that a successful mission would be the demonstration needed to win approval from NASA for Starliner to join SpaceX in making routine trips to orbit on behalf of the U.S. space agency.
But now, Boeing has its work cut out for it to get Starliner up to the task of regularly transporting crews and cargo to the space station. Ahead of the aerospace company are more ground tests and potential modifications to the vehicle to remedy its propulsion system woes and prepare it for routine spaceflight, NASA officials have said.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk's SpaceX has already begun reliably transporting astronauts and supplies since 2020 to the space station aboard its Dragon.
NASA shelled out billions of dollars to both Boeing and SpaceX to develop the vehicles as part of its commercial crew program. In recent years, the agency has shifted to paying private companies for missions it once would carry out itself as a way to cut costs.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Boeing Starliner astronauts to stay at space station another month
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