A rescue mission to bring home astronauts from the International Space Station who traveled there via Boeing’s problematic Starliner spacecraft may be delayed until early next year.
NASA recently announced it was continuing to explore a potential rescue mission with SpaceX aimed for February 2025. The stranded Boeing astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, were only meant to be in space for eight days, but technical issues have left them stranded on the space station for more than two months.
The company’s Starliner spacecraft experienced helium leaks and thruster failures that quickly derailed return plans.
NASA is working to determine whether Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft can return safely. ArsTechnica reported that three of the managers on the project, Boeing’s LeRoy Cain and NASA’s Ken Bowersox and Steve Stich, had key roles in the failed 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia mission, which killed seven astronauts.
“We have been working with SpaceX to ensure they are ready to respond with Crew-9 as a contingency,” Stich said at a press conference last week, according to the New York Post. “We have not formally committed to this path, but we wanted to ensure we had all that flexibility in place.”
“We need to probably decide, likely in the middle of August, one path or the other to go ahead and meet the launch date for Crew-9,” he continued.
Boeing did not respond to a request for comment.
SpaceX’s CrewDragon would conduct the potential rescue mission. The spacecraft is a part of the Crew-9 mission, which plans to transport four astronauts to replace members of the Crew-8 team on the International Space Station.
The Crew-9 mission was planned to launch on August 18 but was delayed to September 24. NASA said the CrewDragon was capable of taking on additional astronauts for its return journey.
The Starliner debacle marks the latest in a series of controversies for Boeing. The company pleaded guilty in July to criminal charges related to two fatal crashes, as previously reported by The Dallas Express. The company was fined $243.6 million to resolve the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched an investigation into Boeing after whistleblowers alleged it utilized ineffective quality control measures.
“After receiving the report, we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating Company policies by not performing a required test but recording the work as having been completed,” Scott Stocker, head of the 787 program, said in an email to employees, the Associated Press reported.
“The company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes,” the FAA said, according to AP. “The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records.”
The air travel industry has faced criticism in recent years for prioritizing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” over safety, as previously reported by DX.