Two astronauts who traveled to the International Space Station aboard a Boeing Worried Starliner more than six months ago will not return to Earth until at least March 2025, NASA announced Tuesday.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams traveled to the space station aboard the Starliner in June. Initially, their journey lasted only eight to ten days, but several problems with the Starliner led to NASA’s concern that, as a precaution, to leave them behind on the space station and return the capsule to empty Earth in September.
That same month, a SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon capsule with a reduced crew of two and two empty seats launched to the space station with the intention of returning Wilmore and Williams aboard in February 2025.
However, NASA said in a press release Tuesday that Wilmore and Williams’ replacements, traveling aboard SpaceX Crew-10, would launch to the space station “no earlier than the end of March 2025,” meaning , which would be the first that Wilmore and Williams. will return to Earth.
The most recent delay in the Crew-10 launch is to give “time for NASA and SpaceX teams to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission.”
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Crew-9, carrying Williams, Wilmore, fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, can leave the space station only after a “handover period” with Crew-10.
The transfer period “allows Crew-9 to share lessons learned with the newly arrived crew and support a better transition for ongoing science and maintenance at the complex.”
NASA did not speculate on how long that handover might take.
The Starliner, Boeing’s answer to the Crew Dragon, has faced major headwinds since it entered development, including a series of technical problems and budget shortfalls.
It eventually launched, but after arriving at the space station with its crew, multiple helium leaks were discovered in the Starliner’s propulsion system, along with degraded thrust in five of its maneuvering jets.
A return in late March or April would mean a trip expected to last just over a week for Williams and Wilmore would have stretched to at least nine months.
“The manufacture, assembly, testing and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires close attention to detail,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement Tuesday about Crew-10. “We appreciate the hard work of the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews as we work together to complete the preparation of the new capsule for on the flight”.
contributed to this report.