NASA has chosen Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore back from space next year. The two astronauts arrived at the International Space Station 80 days ago aboard Boeing’s Starliner for what was supposed to be an 8-day mission. However, due to significant technical issues with the Boeing capsule, their stay had to be extended.
The astronauts are anticipated to return in February next year after spending eight months in orbit. They will return on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch next month as part of a routine astronaut rotation mission.
According to reports, NASA chief Bill Nelson stated that Starliner’s propulsion system is too risky to safely bring its first crew back to Earth. As a result, Starliner will undock from the ISS without any crew on board and attempt to return to Earth as it would have if astronauts were aboard.
NASA’s decision to choose Boeing’s top space rival, SpaceX, dealt a new blow to the Starliner test mission. Boeing had aimed for this mission to revive the struggling program, which has faced years of development issues and over $1.6 billion in budget overruns since 2016.
The SpaceX Crew-9 mission is set to launch in late September, but it will carry only two passengers instead of the originally planned four.
It will stay docked at the ISS until its scheduled return in February, bringing back its crew members along with their two stranded colleagues.
On June 5, the veteran NASA astronauts, both former military test pilots, became the first crew to travel aboard Starliner when they were launched to the ISS.
