Featured Image Credit: MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO/Contributor / NASA/Handout via Getty images
Two astronauts who were supposed to be on an eight-day mission may not be able to return until next year.
NASA's Butch Wilmore and Sunita 'Suni' Williams launched on 5 June aboard the Boeing Starliner.
They were the first crew to fly the spacecraft but ran into serious issues with Starliner's propulsion system, delaying their return to Earth.
Five of Starliner's manoeuvring thrusters reportedly stalled, with five helium leaks and a faulty propellant valve.
Advert
They have remained on the International Space Station for over 60 days, and the problems with the spacecraft have caused questions as to whether it can take the astronauts back down to Earth safely.
With this in mind, the administration suggested at a press conference that it may need to use Boeing’s competitor, Elon Musk's SpaceX, to return astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth.
If Starliner can't make it back, NASA is considering using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon as a backup plan.
But this wouldn't be ready until February 2025, meaning the astronauts would have to remain at the ISS until then.
During a NASA press conference update shared on YouTube, Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager explained in a press conference: 'We have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond with Crew-9 as a contingency.'
He mentioned the team probably not likely to make a decision until the middle of August.
'We have not formally committed to this path, but we wanted to ensure we had all that flexibility in place,' he added.
Initially, Space X's mission was set for 18 August but this has since been pushed back to 24 September.
'We could take either path,' said Ken Bowersox, the associate administrator for NASA’s space operations mission directorate.
'And reasonable people could pick either path depending on where their view is on, on our position and the uncertainty bound that we have for the data that we’ve got on the thruster system, on the propulsion system.'
Last month, Williams was optimistic about Starliner's ability to return the astronauts to Earth: 'I have a real good feeling in my heart that the spacecraft will bring us home, no problem.'
Meanwhile, engineers in New Mexico have been working on fixing the thrusters to find the source of the problem.
Seemingly, out of the five failed thrusts that failed, four have been reactivated with more tests underway to figure out the cause.
