Boeing’s crew-carrying space capsule, Starliner, returned to Earth without its two-person crew just after midnight Eastern time on September 7, 2024. The remote-controlled return capped a grueling test flight to the International Space Station that left two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, months longer than planned after NASA deemed the capsule unsafe to pilot back due to thruster failures.
Wilmore and Williams will remain aboard the International Space Station until February 2025, after which they will return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Conversation US spoke to former International Space Station commander Michael Fossum about NASA’s decision to send the spacecraft back without a crew, the future of the Starliner program and the crew’s long stay at the space station.
What does this decision mean for NASA?
NASA awarded contracts to both Boeing and SpaceX to provide crew transport vehicles to the International Space Station through the Commercial Crew Program in 2014. At the start of the program, most bets were on Boeing to take the lead because of its extensive aviation experience.
But SpaceX moved quickly with its new rocket, the Falcon 9, and its cargo ship, Dragon. While they experienced some early failures during testing, they aggressively built, tested, and learned from each failure. In 2020, SpaceX successfully launched its first test crew to the International Space Station.
Meanwhile, Boeing has struggled with some development setbacks. The outcome of this first test flight was a major disappointment for Boeing and NASA. But NASA leadership has voiced support for Boeing, and many experts, including me, believe it remains in the agency’s best interest to have multiple American crew launch systems to support ongoing human space operations.
NASA also maintains an exchange partnership with Russia, which gives the agency multiple ways to get crew members to and from the space station.
As space station operations continue, NASA and its partners have ample options to get people to and from the station so that there will always be crew on the station — even if there are launch outages for any of the capable crewed vehicles. Having Starliner as an option would help with that redundancy.
What does this decision mean for Boeing?
I think Boeing’s reputation will eventually suffer. The company is competing with SpaceX. Now, the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft has several flights under its belt. It’s proven to be a reliable way to get to and from the space station.
It’s important to remember that this was a test flight for Starliner. Of course, program managers want every test flight to go flawlessly, but you can’t anticipate every potential problem with ground tests. Not surprisingly, some problems arose — you expect them in a test flight.
Space is unforgiving. A small problem can turn into a disaster in zero gravity. These situations are difficult to replicate on the ground.
The technology used by SpaceX and Boeing is also radically different from the capsule technology used in the early stages of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.
NASA has evolved and made strategic moves to advance its mission over the last two decades. The agency has leaned on its legacy of thinking outside the box. Breaking with tradition and using commercial competitors to advance the program was an innovative move. NASA gave companies a set of requirements and left them to figure out how to meet them.
So what does this decision mean for the Starliner crew?
I know Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to be rock solid professionals and believe their first thought was to complete their mission safely. They are both very experienced astronauts with previous long-term space station experience. I am sure they take that for granted.
Before joining NASA, Williams was a Naval aviator and Wilmore was a combat veteran, so these two know how to face risk and accomplish their missions. These types of negative outcomes are always a possibility on a test mission. I’m sure they’re coming out with a positive attitude and using their bonus time in space to advance science, technology, and space exploration.
Their families bear the greater impact. They were ready to welcome the crew home in less than two weeks and must now adjust to being unexpectedly apart for eight months.
NASA is currently dealing with a ripple effect from having more astronauts on the space station than expected. More people means more supplies (like food and clothing) are needed. The space station has supported large crews for short periods of time in the past, but with nine crew members on board today, systems must work harder to purify recycled drinking water, produce oxygen, and remove carbon dioxide from their atmosphere.
Wilmore and Williams are also running out of food, and because they haven’t arrived with the clothing and other personal items they would need for an eight-month stay, NASA has begun increasing deliveries by cargo ship.
What does this decision mean for the future?
Human spaceflight is excruciatingly difficult and relentlessly unforgiving. A million things have to go right for a successful mission. It’s impossible to fully understand how systems perform in microgravity until they’ve been tested in space.
NASA has suffered countless setbacks and near-misses in its quest to send Americans to the Moon. They lost the Apollo 1 crew to a fire during a pre-flight test. They launched the first space shuttle in 1981 and have been plagued by problems throughout the program’s 30-year lifespan, including the devastating losses of Challenger and Columbia.
After more than 30 years of no other U.S. options, three different human spacecraft programs are currently underway. In addition to the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner, NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission is scheduled to fly four astronauts around the Moon in the next few years.
These programs have encountered setbacks and obstacles along the way — and there will be more — but I haven’t been this excited about human spaceflight since I was 11 years old, rooting for Apollo and dreaming of leaving the first human footprints on Mars.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization that brings you facts and trusted analysis to help you understand our complex world. By Michael E. Fossum Texas A&M University
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Michael E. Fossum is a retired NASA astronaut. All of the people at NASA are his friends and colleagues.