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The pair of astronauts who journeyed into space on the first crewed mission of Beoing’s Starliner are going to have to wait even longer to come back down to Earth.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) in June for what was thought to be a maximum of 10 days before a series of issues with the Starliner vehicle were discovered. That pushed NASA to have the Starliner return two months later without them on board.
So NASA turned to Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring the astronauts back home, although they’d have to wait until a SpaceX CrewDragon capsule made the return trip in February 2025.
However, on Tuesday, the agency said SpaceX’s Crew-10 has been delayed to no earlier than late March 2025 in order to give the company more time to work on the spacecraft. That means Wilmore and Williams will remain in space for an extra month.
“Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich said in a statement. “We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews as we work together to complete the new capsule’s readiness for flight.”
Besides Wilmore and Williams, SpaceX’s Crew-9 will bring NASA’s Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov back to Earth next year. Two other astronauts, Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, were cut from Crew-9’s September launch in order to make room for Wilmore and Williams’ return.
Their replacements on the ISS will be NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Takuya Onishi.
As for Boeing (BA+0.77%), the Starliner could be one of the last space-related efforts in the company’s lengthy history of working with NASA. In October, The Wall Street Journal (NWSA+0.42%) reported that Boeing was exploring a sale of its space-related programs as part of CEO Kelly Ortberg’s plan to simplify the firm’s portfolio.
