By Charlie Levin
Originally planned to be a ten-day long mission, it will now be over six months long.
NASA’s plan was to send astronauts up for a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) on a Boeing Starliner in June 2024. That is what they did. What they didn’t do was bring them home. The spacecraft that brought them up to the ISS was deemed ready to fly them up safely. It wasn’t capable of flying them back, however, according to NASA’s safety program.
The Boeing Starliner flew back on its own just a few days ago, on Saturday, September 7th. According to space.com, NASA said that the astronauts would have been safe on the Starliner after it touched down, so the decision to keep them in space was out of an abundance of caution. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronauts partaking in the mission, will stay on the ISS until February of 2025.
On the decision to keep them in space for a little longer than planned, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said this: “Spaceflight is risky, even at its safest and most routine. A test flight, by nature, is neither safe, nor routine. The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring Boeing’s Starliner home uncrewed is the result of our commitment to safety: our core value and our North Star.”
NASA does have a plan to bring the astronauts home eventually, though. A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will bring them home in February, the astronauts tagging along for the departure of SpaceX’s Crew 9 mission.
Originally slated to have four astronauts, the Crew 9 mission will now only go up to the ISS with two, so there is room to bring Wilmore and Williams home. The Crew 9 mission is expected to launch as early as the end of the month and will return from the ISS in February with the stranded astronauts.
