Astronauts 'trapped' in space won't be able to return until February 2025
Astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were supposed to return to Earth on June 12, may have to wait until February 2025 if the Starliner capsule continues to be considered unsafe. The information was released on Wednesday (7) by NASA employees, who face a series of challenges to ensure the safety of the crew's return.
The mission, which was scheduled to last eight days, was the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner capsule, which launched on June 5. However, problems with the propulsion and helium leaks threw off the schedule and forced Boeing to begin a series of tests to determine the cause of the problems and propose solutions to NASA.
“We are very confident that the tests we are doing are what we need to get the right answers and the data we need to get back,” Wilmore said last month. However, the results of those tests have yet to allay concerns about Starliner’s safety and have sparked internal debates within the agency about the capsule’s risks.
In response to these failures, NASA is discussing possible plans with SpaceX to reserve two empty seats on the next launch of the Crew Dragon capsule, which received NASA approval for astronaut flights in 2020. Using SpaceX’s spacecraft to bring back astronauts Boeing had planned to fly back with Starliner would be a major blow to the space giant, which has struggled for years to compete with SpaceX.
The US space agency is giving Boeing more time to conduct more tests and collect additional data, with a decision expected next week. Because of these issues, NASA has already postponed the next Crew Dragon mission, called Crew-9, by more than a month.
The return of astronauts Wilmore and Williams has already been postponed three times. “We are very confident that the tests we are doing are what we need to get the right answers and the data we need to get back,” Wilmore said last month. He is eagerly awaiting NASA’s final decision on the safe return of the astronauts, as safe return is a top priority.
