NASA is still waiting for the Starliner to return astronauts from the ISS

With NASA astronauts docked at the International Space Station far longer than planned, agency leadership on Wednesday acknowledged possible alternatives to Boeing’s Starliner for returning the crew to Earth.

However, Boeing’s spacecraft remains the primary option for returning the crew, officials said.

Officials say the Starliner Calypso capsule could return later this month from its extended stay at the ISS, pending test results of a faulty propulsion system. Starliner has now been in space for 36 days and counting as the agency and Boeing conduct additional testing in New Mexico before clearing the craft to return.

The mission is the first time the Starliner is carrying humans, with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

NASA commercial crew manager Steve Stich stressed during a news conference that “the first option today is to return Butch and Suni to Starliner,” adding, “we see no reason” at this time to resort to the agency’s other transport option, which will be SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, to bring back the astronauts.

Stich — while acknowledging that a SpaceX capsule could be part of contingency plans in case the Starliner returns from the ISS empty — noted that NASA does not yet need to “make a decision about whether we need to do something different.”

“Certainly we’ve taken some of those things out to look at in relation to the Starliner, just to be prepared in case we have to use some of those kinds of things,” Stich said.

“[But] there really was no discussion of sending another Dragon to rescue the Starliner crew,” Stich later added.

Boeing and NASA on July 3 began testing the shuttle’s thruster technology back on Earth at White Sands, New Mexico, aiming to replicate a problem that caused five of Calypso’s thrusters to shut down when the spacecraft was maneuvering to dock with ISS. . Ground testing is being done to “make sure that with all these pulses and all the heat we’re giving it, it doesn’t cause any damage to the thruster,” Stich said.

Stich noted that a “late July” turnaround for the Starliner is “optimistic” 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 saw in flight,” Boeing’s Mark Nappi, vice president of the Starliner program, said during the press conference.

“What we’re trying to do with this testing is fill in some gaps because … what we’re trying to do is understand if the propellants are performing [as expected], then we will be able to unlock and just go back. If the thrusters were somehow damaged, then what would we do differently?” Nappi said.

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

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

“We believe the tests we’re doing are what we need to do to get the right answers to give us the data we need to go back,” Wilmore said.

Starliner was once seen as 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 steadily relegated the Starliner to a secondary position for NASA, with the agency planning to have SpaceX and Boeing fly astronauts on alternate flights.

The Starliner crew flight test represents a major final step before NASA certifies Boeing to fly the crew on six-month operational missions that begin in February.