Astronauts who went to space for eight days will finally come home – next year

Nasa has called in Elon Musk’s SpaceX after scrapping plans to bring two astronauts home from the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner.

Sunita Williams and Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore were only supposed to spend eight days orbiting earth on the satellite, but they’ve been up there for 80 days.

When they finally hitch a ride home on SpaceX next February, they’ll have been in space for seven months.

At least they’ve got the gym and a 360-degree view of earth and space through a bay window to keep themselves occupied. The ISS is the size of a six-bedroom house after all.

Their departure aboard Boeing’s Starliner – a new spacecraft designed to ferry astronauts and cargo to the ISS – ended up delayed for years and some £1.1billion over budget.

It was nearly postponed further due to a helium leak, but it got them there in once piece after taking off on June 5.

At the time Nasa claimed the leak didn’t need fixing for the spacecraft to launch.

Nasa programme manager Steve Stich said: ‘We could handle this particular leak if that leak rate were to grow even up to 100 times.’

A somewhat ominous warning came from Erin Faville, president of Nasa contractor ValveTech, who urged more safety checks.

She said: ‘I warned. I will choose to let it play out.’

Play out it did, with the problems escalating midflight.

It wasn’t just multiple helium leaks anymore – they had five dead maneuvering thrusters and a propellant valve fail as well.

Now Nasa faces the challenge of getting both the crew and the craft back to earth safely.

The target date of July 6 has come and gone, as did Starliner’s 72-day docking limit before fuel was supposed to run out.

Now it seems they won’t be coming home together, something that would have required Starliner’s propulsion system and various leaks to be fixed, unless absolutely necessary, Nasa said.

Williams and Wilmore can hitch a ride home on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which has been flying astronauts to the ISS since 2020. They’ll just have to wait until February.

Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said: ‘Spaceflight is risky – even at its safest and even at its most routine – and a test flight, by nature, is neither safe nor routine, and so the decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring the Boeing Starliner home uncrewed is a result of a commitment to safety.’

Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully completed its eighth transfer of astronauts in March this year.

While SpaceX may have been the first to do so with a private spacecraft, Boeing has been eager to compete with its Starliner.

But the future of Boeing’s space ambitions now look just as uncertain as the fate of Starliner itself.

For now at least, Nasa hasn’t scrapped its collaboration with Boeing entirely.

Nelson said: ‘I want you to know that Boeing has worked very hard with Nasa to get the necessary data to make this decision.

‘We want to further understand the root causes and understand the design improvements so that the Boeing Starliner will serve as an important part of our assured crew access to the ISS.’

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