By Michael E. Fossum, Texas A&M University
Boeing’s crew transport capsule, the Starliner, returned to Earth without its two-person crew shortly after midnight Eastern time on Sept. 7, 2024.
The remotely piloted return marked the end of a difficult test flight to the International Space Station. The mission left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams on the station for months longer than intended after thruster failures led NASA to determine that the capsule was not safe to pilot home with crew aboard.
Wilmore and Williams are expected to remain on the International Space Station until February 2025, when they are scheduled to return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
The Conversation U.S. asked Michael Fossum, a former commander of the International Space Station, about NASA’s decision to return Starliner uncrewed, the future of Boeing’s program, and what the extended stay means for the astronauts.
What Does This Decision Mean for NASA?
NASA awarded contracts to both Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 to provide crew transport vehicles to the International Space Station through the Commercial Crew Program. At the start of the program, many expected Boeing to take the lead because of its extensive aerospace experience.
SpaceX, however, moved quickly with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. While the company experienced early testing failures, it aggressively built, tested and learned from those setbacks. In 2020, SpaceX successfully launched its first test crew to the International Space Station.
Boeing, meanwhile, struggled through development setbacks. The outcome of this first crewed test flight was a major disappointment for both Boeing and NASA. Still, NASA leadership has expressed support for Boeing, and many experts believe it remains in the agency’s best interest to have more than one American crew launch system supporting human spaceflight.
NASA is also continuing its exchange partnership with Russia, which gives the agency multiple ways to move crew members to and from the station. As space station operations continue, NASA and its partners need enough transportation options to ensure essential crew members can always reach or leave the station, even if one vehicle experiences delays or disruptions.
Having Starliner as an additional option would help provide that redundancy.
What Does This Decision Mean for Boeing?
Boeing’s reputation is likely to suffer. The company is competing directly with SpaceX, whose Dragon crew spacecraft has now completed multiple flights and proven itself as a reliable way to reach and return from the International Space Station.
It is important to remember, however, that Starliner’s mission was a test flight. Program managers always want test flights to run perfectly, but not every problem can be anticipated through ground testing. Problems do occur during test missions, and the space environment is unforgiving.
A small issue can become catastrophic in zero gravity, and it is difficult to fully replicate those conditions on the ground. The technology used by SpaceX and Boeing is also radically different from the capsule technology of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo eras.
NASA has made strategic moves over the past two decades to advance its mission. One of those moves was to break from tradition and use commercial competitors to help develop crew transportation. Rather than designing every element itself, NASA gave companies a set of requirements and left them to determine how best to meet them.
That approach brings innovation, but it also brings risk.
What Does This Mean for Starliner’s Crew?
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are highly experienced astronauts and rock-solid professionals. Both have previous long-duration space station experience, and both know how to face risk and accomplish a mission.
Prior to joining NASA, Williams was a naval aviator, and Wilmore was a combat veteran. This kind of unfavorable outcome is always possible in a test mission, and they are likely using their unexpected extra time in space to continue advancing science, technology and exploration.
Their families may feel the larger emotional impact. They expected to welcome the crew home after less than two weeks and instead had to adjust to being separated for months.
NASA is also dealing with the practical ripple effects of having more astronauts than expected aboard the station. More people means more consumables, including food and clothing. The space station has supported larger crews for short periods before, but with nine crew members aboard, its systems must work harder to purify recycled drinking water, generate oxygen and remove carbon dioxide.
Wilmore and Williams also did not arrive with the personal supplies needed for an eight-month stay, so NASA has had to increase deliveries on cargo ships.
What Does This Mean for the Future?
Human spaceflight is extremely difficult and relentlessly unforgiving. A million things must go right for a mission to succeed. It is impossible to fully understand how systems will perform in microgravity until they are tested in space.
NASA has experienced many failures and near-misses in its history. The agency lost the Apollo 1 crew in a fire during a preflight test. It launched the first space shuttle in 1981 and dealt with problems throughout that program’s 30-year life, including the tragic losses of Challenger and Columbia.
After decades with no other U.S. options, three different American human spacecraft programs are now underway. In addition to SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner, NASA’s Orion spacecraft is being developed for Artemis missions, including a planned flight carrying astronauts around the Moon.
These programs have faced setbacks, and more setbacks will come. But they also represent an exciting moment for human spaceflight. The United States now has multiple pathways for sending people into space, and that redundancy matters.
The Starliner test flight was disappointing, but disappointment is not the end of exploration. It is part of the process of learning how to do difficult things safely.
Michael E. Fossum is Vice President at Texas A&M University.
Editor’s Note: This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
