NASA still expects the Starliner to return astronauts from the ISS

With NASA astronauts docked at the International Space Station far longer than planned, agency officials on Wednesday acknowledged potential alternatives to the Boeing Starliner for returning crews to Earth.

Still, Boeing’s spacecraft remains the primary option for crew return, officials said.

Officials say the Starliner’s “Calypso” capsule may return later this month from an extended stay on the ISS as they await test results of the faulty propulsion system. Starliner has now been in space for 36 days, and the agency and Boeing are expected to conduct additional tests in New Mexico before clearing the spacecraft to return.

The mission marks the first time the Starliner has carried humans and flew NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

NASA Commercial Crew Manager Steve Stich emphasized during a press conference that the first “option today is to return Butch and Suni on the Starliner,” adding, “we see no reason” to turn to the agency’s other transportation option at this time, which would be the Crew Dragon to SpaceX to bring back astronauts.

Stich — while acknowledging that SpaceX’s capsule could be part of contingency plans in case the Starliner returns from the ISS empty — noted that NASA has yet to “decide whether we have to do something else.”

“We definitely dusted off a few of those things to look at against the Starliner to be prepared in case we had to use some of those things,” Stich said.

“[But] there really wasn’t any discussion about sending another dragon to rescue the Starliner crew,” Stich later added.

On July 3, Boeing and NASA began testing the spacecraft’s thruster technology back on the ground in White Sands, New Mexico, with the goal of replicating the problem that caused up to five of Calypso’s thrusters to shut down as the spacecraft maneuvered to dock with the ISS. . Ground testing is being done to make sure that with all these impulses and all the heat we’re putting into it, it doesn’t cause any damage to the nozzle, Stich said.

Stich noted that the return of the Starliner “at the end of July” is “optimistically” based on the completion of testing. Boeing and NASA teams at White Sands are conducting inspections of the test thruster over the next week.

But “so far we haven’t been able to replicate the temperatures we’ve seen in flight,” Boeing’s Mark Nappi, vice president of the Starliner program, said during a news conference.

“What we’re trying to do with this testing is fill in some of the gaps because … what we’re trying to do is understand if the nozzles are working.” [as expected], then we’ll be able to disconnect and just come back. If the jets were somehow damaged, then what would we do differently?” Nappi said.

“We don’t believe we have damaged nozzles, but again we want to fill in the blanks and do this test to make sure,” Nappi added.

Speaking to the press from the ISS, Wilmore and Williams both expressed confidence in returning to the Starliner.

“We believe the tests we’re doing are the ones we need to do to get the right answers to get the data we need to come back,” Wilmore said.

Starliner was once considered a competitor to SpaceX’s Dragon, which has made 12 crewed trips to the ISS over the past four years. However, various setbacks and delays have gradually relegated the Starliner to the sidelines for NASA, with the agency planning to have SpaceX and Boeing fly the astronauts on alternating flights.

The Starliner crew flight test represents the last major step before NASA certifies Boeing to fly crewed on operational, six-month missions starting as early as February.