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NASA has pushed the launch of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission from August 18th to September 24th to accommodate the delay in returning Boeing’s Starliner to Earth.
The decision gives Boeing and NASA additional time to prepare for Starliner’s return, including reliability checks and finishing the flight rationale for the propulsion system. Nothing final has been set for the spacecraft’s voyage home, NASA said.
The space agency added that this also removed a conflict between the next SpaceX crew rotation and a Soyuz handover slated for mid-September. Crew-9 should be ready in time to avoid a conflict with the pad prep for the Europa Clipper mission, but the next SpaceX supply mission has been moved to mid-October.
The crewed Starliner vehicle launched in June after one last delay involving a ground launch sequencer. The trip to the International Space Station (ISS) was only supposed to last a few days, but thruster failures enroute to the station left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams stuck in orbit. A helium leak that had manifested before only became more of a problem during the journey.
Boeing recently acknowledged that the delay in launching and returning Starliner had cost its program another $125 million, bringing the total losses to $11.6 billion. The company has nonetheless backed NASA’s calls for more testing and is “confident” Starliner can safely return to Earth.
The ongoing trouble has already required that NASA change tack. While it was originally going to split crewed ISS missions between SpaceX and Boeing, the Starliner issues pushed NASA to request more SpaceX missions. Boeing is under pressure to solve its technical woes if it wants to play a significant role in the privatization of American spaceflight.
