The Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which sent Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams into orbit for eight days in early June, is unable to return them safely to Earth.
After weeks of denial from NASA, reality is here: the two American astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams are stuck in the International Space Station (ISS).
The cause is that the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which sent them into orbit in early June, is currently considered incapable of bringing them back to Earth safely.
“We find ourselves in a new situation, in that we have several options ,” declared former astronaut Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of NASA. ” We are not obliged to bring back a crew aboard Starliner: we can bring them back aboard another vehicle.”
NASA called Elon Musk’s company but SpaceX could not offer a solution before February 2025.
The case threatens the very existence of Boeing’s Starliner space program and makes SpaceX, the preferred space provider of the US federal authorities, more than ever, and until now much more reliable and cheaper.
The competition between Boeing and Elon Musk’s firm began in 2014, when NASA awarded $4.2 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX, to create vehicles to carry astronauts into space.