The only thing anyone could count on was that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, each NASA astronauts and retired Navy captains, would keep their composure.
Their planned eight-day trip to the International Space Station (ISS) will as an alternative take eight months as a consequence of significant problems with the Boeing spacecraft that carried them. But when Williams and Wilmore met with media representatives via video link last Friday, the pair showed little sign of frustration.
“Absolutely not,” Wilmore said when asked if he felt let down by the various onboard problems that forced the Boeing Starliner to return to Earth unmanned. 6 September, three months after he and Williams accomplished a troubled flight there in June. At NASA, Wilmore added, “We’re taking it a step further. We’re doing things that are unusual, and we’re sending people into space. And yes, we’re here on the space station today. Even today, this operation is not easy.” Williams, the mission’s pilot, added, “We’re both in the Navy. We’ve both been deployed. We’re not surprised when missions are changed.”
So Williams and Wilmore will spend not only days but months on the ISS while they wait for a SpaceX spacecraft to succeed in the station in February 2025 and convey them home. Given the wealth of experience each of them brings to their roles, including long periods of time in space, this may likely improve ISS operations.
But that does not solve NASA’s greater problem: The government agency has spent billions of dollars working with two private firms to perform just such space transports. And a decade after this collaboration began, it’s still unclear what value the space agency is getting for its taxpayer money.
Part of the Starliner mission was to prove that humans could safely fly the Boeing spacecraft to the ISS, which orbits about 250 miles above Earth. This was the spacecraft’s first crewed flight, and it got here 10 years after NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion contract specifically to finish development of the Starliner to move its astronauts to the space station and back. (SpaceX received $2.6 billion for its Dragon spacecraft for a similar purpose.)
However, this Starliner flight raised more questions than it answered. After a delayed startThe spacecraft’s journey to the ISS was marred by significant problems, including helium leaks and engine failures. And Williams and Wilmore remained on the space station when Starliner returned home because NASA deemed it too dangerous to have them on board.
Despite additional Problems with the engine and a short lived Disturbance within the Starliner’s guidance system during re-entry, the spacecraft landed “on target” on the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, said Steve Stich, NASA’s business crew program manager. Nevertheless, Stich said during a press conference: “I think we made the right decision not to have Butch and Suni on board.”
It is the newest disappointment in Boeing’s ongoing try and get a manned spacecraft up and running, an endeavor that has been tormented by problems since a minimum of 2018, when a government agency said Both Boeing and SpaceX are “struggling to implement aggressive schedules.”
Setbacks are to be expected, especially for spacecraft which can be still under development, each Williams and Wilmore said last week during a 40-minute media session from the ISS.
“When Butch and I were preparing for this flight, we talked about it a lot and talked about it being a test flight,” said Williams, who will turn into ISS commander in just a few weeks. “It (the mission) was planned for eight days. There might be other things that would keep us here a little longer.”
“I mean, we’re testers. That’s our job,” she added. “We wanted to get Starliner to completion and then get it back on land, back home. But you have to turn the page and look for the next opportunity and do good for the agency and the country.”
It may even come at a private cost to him. Williams mentioned plans for the autumn that include spending time together with her elderly mother, while Wilmore noted that he’ll miss most of his younger daughter’s senior yr of highschool. Both astronauts are expected to give you the chance to vote from space within the upcoming United States presidential election.
The two will now take part in an ISS that can temporarily 12 Astronauts from the United States and Russia. As they’ve done since their arrival, Williams and Wilmore will help conduct experiments and perform maintenance and repair work on the space station itself.
As for NASA’s future with Boeing, the trail forward shouldn’t be clear. The company’s first test of the Starliner in 2019, with nobody on board, led to incorrect orbit and missed the ISS. The repeat in 2022 uncovered further problems and a repair bill that reportedly 1 billion US dollarsOverall, Boeing almost 1.6 billion dollars in financial costs for Starliner for the reason that program began – and that doesn’t include the price of fixing the issues encountered on that mission. (When asked by the New York Times in regards to the way forward for the space business before Starliner’s return, a Boeing spokesman replied: said The company “continues to place its primary focus on crew and spacecraft safety.”)
On the business side, Boeing has had several disasters recently, including two Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that crashed—one in 2018 and one other in 2019— through which 346 people died. This cost the corporate greater than 2.5 billion US dollars in settlements. And in January 2024 a Door stopper was knocked off a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet shortly after takeoff, forcing an emergency landing. The company can be involved in a wage negotiation with greater than 30,000 employeeswho announced his resignation last week, while attempting to implement dangerous cost-cutting measures.
NASA decided to book SpaceX for Williams and Wilmore’s flight home in February.
SpaceX had its own problems, including the Fail its Falcon 9 rocket, which is scheduled to launch early this yr. But it has successfully launched 13 manned flights into space since 2020, including nine missions for NASA. On Sunday morning, the corporate accomplished a historic mission that saw the world’s first purely civilian spacewalk from his spaceship Polaris Dawn.
When asked what Boeing could have done in another way within the Starliner development process, Williams replied, “That’s a very interesting and valid question,” but declined to elaborate. “When you push the envelope again and do things with spacecraft that have never been done before, just like with the Starliner, you find some things. And in this case, we found some things that we just couldn’t put back into the Starliner, even though we had other options.”
NASA outsourced construction of the spacecraft to Boeing and SpaceX so it could deal with greater goals like attending to Mars. One day, there could also be a better approach to transport NASA’s astronauts to the space station and back, but for now, all Williams and Wilmore can do is figure and wait.
Still, Williams said, “This is my favorite place… It’s often very peaceful up here. There’s a lot of work going on, but you also have a little time to reflect.” Back on Earth, it’s as much as NASA decision-makers to plan the subsequent steps – and how you can get into space without the astronauts being stranded there.
Other indispensable comments published by Assets:
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com’s commentaries reflect solely the views of their authors and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Assets.
