Bucket of Bolts
NASA is still hemming and hawing over how to return its two astronauts currently stranded on board the International Space Station.
Rumors continue to swirl that the space agency is considering making room for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is now scheduled to arrive at the station in late September.
And as the Wall Street Journal reports, that potential plan has enraged Boeing officials as tensions continue to grow — and time is running out.
According to the WSJ, a review of Starliner’s readiness for its return flight was postponed, suggesting not everybody at NASA is convinced that it’s safe to fly.
That’s in stark contrast to Boeing, which has been adamant that Starliner is ready to safely carry Williams and Wilmore back to Earth — a hairy situation for the aerospace giant, which has already been embroiled in controversy for years over its passenger jets failing in several ways.
Risker Act
Boeing’s Starliner managed to sputter to the space station in early June, despite springing several helium leaks affecting its propulsion system. Ever since, engineers have been poring over the data and testing spare engines back on the ground in an effort to pinpoint the problem.
In the face of it all, an official return date for Wilmore and Williams has yet to materialize just over two months into what was initially supposed to be a two-week trip to the ISS.
For its part, NASA has yet to make a decision on which spacecraft to use for their return. The stakes are high: Boeing’s total losses on Starliner have grown to a whopping $1.6 billion, and both it and NASA have committed a total of $6.7 billion to the program since 2010.
That’s at least twice as expensive as SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which has reliably been doing the exact same job that Starliner is supposed to do for years now.
In short, the agency is stuck between a rock and a hard place. It’ll need to either risk Williams and Wilmore’s lives by sending them back on board Boeing’s leaking Starliner, or undercut its multi-billion dollar contract with Boeing by opting for a ride from SpaceX instead — an admission that NASA’s over-budget and much-delayed alternative to SpaceX’s Dragon still isn’t ready.
More on Starliner: NASA Pushes Back Next SpaceX Astronaut Launch as Boeing Crisis Deepens
