NASA announced Thursday that after months of deliberations, it will make a final decision by the end of this week on the fate of the two astronauts aboard the International Space Station, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. On Saturday, the two crew members will find out whether they will return aboard the Starliner spacecraft in early September or the Crew Dragon spacecraft in February of next year.
On the eve of this fateful decision, which will be the most important decision about human spaceflight safety that NASA has made in over two decades, Ars has compiled an overview of what we know, what we believe to be true, and what’s still unknown.
Why did it take NASA so long?
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the International Space Station 11 weeks ago. Their mission was scheduled for eight days, with the expectation that they might stay longer. But no one expected the crew to stay this long. That all changed when five of the 28 small thrusters that guide Starliner failed during its flight to the space station. After several tries, astronauts and flight controllers at Johnson Space Center were able to guide the spacecraft to safely dock with the station.
The in-space failure led to months of testing of similar thrusters on the spacecraft and on the ground in New Mexico, followed by extensive data review and modeling by engineers to determine the root cause of the thruster problem. On Friday, lower-level managers will meet with their program management board to discuss the findings and make recommendations to senior managers. Those officials, chaired by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, will make a final decision at a Flight Readiness Review in Houston on Saturday.
What are the two options?
NASA administrators will decide whether to return the astronauts aboard Starliner as early as Sept. 2, or to Earth aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft, scheduled for launch on Sept. 24. The so-called “Crew 9” mission will launch with just two astronauts, instead of all four, because of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Wilmore and Williams will then join the mission, extending their six-month stay at the space station — turning a stay of eight days into eight months.
How do Butch and Suni feel about this?
We don’t know, because they haven’t said anything to the media since it became clear that they might be staying in space for a long time. But according to various sources, the crew seems to be more or less calm about it. They understand that this is a test flight, and the training included the possibility of staying in space for a long time if something goes wrong with the Starliner.
Not that it’s convenient: Both Wilmore and Williams have families on Earth who are hopefully home by now, and the space station wasn’t designed for long-term stays; Wilmore, for example, must sleep in the science lab rather than in a designated sleeping area, which means he has to pack his own bags every morning.
What’s clear is that Wilmore and Williams accept NASA’s decision this weekend. In other words, they have no intention of starting a space revolt. They trust NASA officials to make the right safety decision, whatever the consequences. (Indeed, Als does too.)
Why is this a difficult decision?
NASA is first and foremost interested in returning astronauts safely. But there are countless other secondary decision factors, and returning Butch and Suni on Dragon instead of Starliner would raise many new issues. Not the least of which would be that it would be a devastating blow to Boeing. Their public image would be terrible if their longtime rival SpaceX had to step in and “rescue” the crew from an unsafe Boeing spacecraft. Moreover, the company has already lost $1.6 billion on the Starliner program, and there is a chance that Boeing will cancel the program. NASA does not want to lose its second provider of crew transportation services to the space station.