NASA Swallows Bitter Pill – Delays SpaceX’s Crew Mission To Make Room For Boeing’s Starliner

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is delaying its next crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA and SpaceX were slated to fly the Crew-9 mission to the ISS later this month, but now, the mission has been delayed by more than a month to late September. The delay follows as Boeing's Starliner continues to remain at the ISS, with no details from NASA's front about its plans to bring Starliner and its crew safely back to Earth.

While Starliner's manufacturer Boeing is adamant that it has conducted extensive safety tests of the ship, NASA is yet to share details of an agency review that would have given the potential go ahead for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return to Earth on the same ship that they flew on.

NASA's Crew-9 Delay Opens Up Space On ISS For Starliner To Safely Depart Station

Crew 9's launch delay to September 24th was initially reported by ArsTechnica earlier today, and NASAS confirmed it in a release moments back. In it, the agency cut to the chase and shared right off the bat that the delay was to enable "mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test currently docked to the orbiting laboratory." In its report, Ars had outlined that teams on Earth had to update Starliner's software to allow it to autonomously undock from the ISS - an aspect of its performance that NASA's Steve Stich had also alluded to in a press conference.

As of Monday, "no decisions" have been made by NASA for Williams and Wilmore's return journey. The agency and Boeing "continue to evaluate the spacecraft’s readiness," but interestingly, the NASA release does not share any updates for Crew-9's crew. Right now, a SpaceX Crew Dragon for Crew 8 and Starliner are docked with the ISS, which constrains the station's ability to accommodate more crewed vehicles.

Crew 9's current complement plans to fly NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Nick Hague and Stephanie Wilson, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, to the ISS for a six month mission. However, had the agency planned to return Wilmore and Williams to Earth on SpaceX's Dragon, then it could have chosen to fly just two astronauts on the Dragon and have Wilmore and Williams join them when they returned. Such a profile would have seen the Boeing astronauts spend more than six months in space, and it would have meant that they flew in a ship for which they received little training.

As of now, NASA and Boeing continue to analyze the data from a hot fire test that took place in space on Starliner last weekend. In NASA's latest press conference, commercial crew manager Steve Stich shared that this data could have been used to inform an agency review as soon as late last week. However, with no word from NASA since then, speculation has grown about Starliner's ability to bring the crew home.

Other aspects of the ship's performance that NASA and Boeing are evaluating are the "flight rationale" for the "integrated propulsion system" and system reliability. During his talk, Stich had shared that the manner in which Starliner's thrusters - which have proven to be its most troublesome component - were behaving after a Sun facing orientation and their encapsulation in a dog house was key to understanding the ship's behavior and its return profile.

These thrusters are responsible for moving the ship away from the ISS and ensuring that it can enter the Earth's atmosphere, with risks of a collision with the ISS and an incorrect reentry profile being among those the space agency is likely evaluating.

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