HOUSTON: NASA’s Starliner spacecraft, which launched in June on a critical test mission to the International Space Station (ISS), is now facing challenges that have prolonged the mission far beyond its original eight-day timeline.
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The spacecraft, carrying veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, has been plagued by issues with its propulsion system, raising concerns about its ability to safely return the crew to Earth. Earlier this month, NASA said that astronauts delivered to the International Space Station by Boeing’s Starliner could return on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in February 2025 if Starliner is still deemed unsafe to return to Earth.
The mission, initially expected to last about eight days, has been drawn out far longer by an array of problems with the craft’s propulsion system that Boeing and NASA have been scrambling to fix.
Those problems have called into question Starliner’s ability to safely return to Earth its crew, veteran NASA astronauts Wilmore and Williams. NASA has been examining whether a Crew Dragon capsule will have to bring them home instead. Such an outcome would be a setback for Boeing, which hopes to compete with SpaceX to ferry supplies and crew members to and from the space station.
Williams first flew to the space station aboard a space shuttle and made a return visit as a Soyuz passenger riding along with two cosmonauts. Both her ISS tours – in 2006-2007 and in 2012 – were long-duration science expeditions.
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After two stays aboard the outpost, Williams had set a world record for the most time spent by a woman in orbit outside a spacecraft, logging a total of 50 hours and 40 minutes combined during seven spacewalks. Her record has since been surpassed by fellow astronaut Peggy Whitson.