NASA
NASA and Boeing are currently making final preparations for the undocking of the Starliner spacecraft from the International Space Station next Friday, September 6, in preparation for landing at White Sands Space Harbor in southern New Mexico.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were scheduled to return to Earth on the Starliner, will remain on the space station after NASA decided last week to end the Boeing test flight without the crew on board. NASA officials decided it was too risky to send the astronauts on the Starliner after engine failures occurred during the flight to the space station in early June.
Instead, Wilmore and Williams will come home in a SpaceX Dragon capsule no earlier than February, extending their planned stay on the space station from eight days to eight months. The Starliner spacecraft, flying on autopilot, is scheduled to depart the station at about 6:04 p.m. EDT (10:04 p.m. UTC) on Sept. 6. The capsule will fire its engines to deorbit and land by parachute in New Mexico at 12:03 a.m. EDT (4:03 a.m. UTC) on Sept. 7, NASA said in a statement Thursday.
NASA officials on Thursday completed the second part of a two-day flight readiness check to clear the Starliner spacecraft for undocking and landing. But there are strict weather regulations for landing a Starliner spacecraft, so NASA and Boeing managers will decide next week whether to proceed with the return next Friday evening or wait for better conditions at the White Sands landing zone.
In recent days, flight controllers have updated parameters in the Starliner's software to allow a fully autonomous return to Earth without input from astronauts in the cockpit, NASA said. Boeing has conducted two uncrewed test flights with the Starliner using the same type of autonomous reentry and landing procedures. That mission, called a Crew Flight Test (CFT), was the first time astronauts were put into orbit in a Starliner spacecraft and should pave the way for future operational missions in which four-person crews take turns flying to the space station and back.
With the Starliner space shuttle unable to complete its test flight as planned, there are fundamental questions about the future of Boeing's commercial crew program. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said last week that Boeing's new CEO Kelly Ortberg told him the aerospace company remains committed to Starliner. But Boeing will have to pay for the costs of fixing the problems with overheating engines and helium leaks that hampered the CFT mission. Boeing has made no public statements about the long-term future of the Starliner program since NASA decided to pull its astronauts from the space shuttle for the return to Earth.
Preparing for emergencies
NASA is apparently happier returning Wilmore and Williams to Earth in SpaceX's Dragon capsule, but the change disrupts crew operations on the space station. This week, astronauts have been using the interior of a Dragon spacecraft currently docked at the outer station to resupply six crew members in the event of an emergency evacuation.
When Starliner leaves the space station next week, Dragon will become the lifeboat for Wilmore and Williams. If a fire, collision with space debris, medical emergency or something else forces the crew to leave the complex, the Starliner astronauts will travel home in temporary seats placed beneath the four regular seats in Dragon, where crews typically put cargo during launch and landing.
At least one of the Starliner astronauts would have to return home without a spacesuit to protect themselves if the Dragon spacecraft's cabin depressurized on approach to landing. This has never happened on a Dragon mission, but astronauts wear pressure suits made by SpaceX to reduce the risk. The four astronauts who launched on Dragon have their suits, and NASA officials said one of the Starliner astronauts will fit in a spare suit made by SpaceX and already on the space station, but they did not say which one.
A pressure suit for the Starliner's other crew member will be carried on the next Dragon spacecraft – the Crew-9 mission – which is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than September 24. The Starliner's problems have also thwarted plans for the Crew-9 mission.
On Friday, NASA announced that it would remove two astronauts from the Crew-9 mission, including commander Zena Cardman, who is still a novice in spaceflight. Experienced astronaut Nick Hague will leave the pilot's seat and take command of Crew-9. He will be joined by Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.
NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos have an agreement to send Russian cosmonauts to the space station on Dragon missions and U.S. astronauts on Russian Soyuz flights. In exchange for NASA providing a flight to Gorbunov, NASA astronaut Don Pettit will fly to the space station on a Soyuz spacecraft next month.
The so-called “seat swap” agreement ensures that even if Dragon or Soyuz remain grounded, there will always be at least one U.S. and one Russian cosmonaut on the station, overseeing each partner's respective section of the space station and maintaining propulsion, power generation, pointing control, temperature control and other critical functions to keep the laboratory running.