The astronauts, who have already spent more than 60 days in space, may have to wait until early 2025 to complete their originally planned eight-day journey to the International Space Station and return to Earth.
NASA also acknowledged that astronauts arriving on the maiden flight of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft may need to be rescued by rival SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, which is not due to be ready until February.
NASA announced at a press conference on Wednesday that plans to return Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been postponed again, and said it is now more closely considering an alternative using SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission.
If tests in the coming weeks prove that a return aboard Starliner is too risky, Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said Wilmore and Williams would likely have no choice but to fly aboard the Crew 9 repatriation flight in February 2025.
“We’ve been working with SpaceX to ensure we’re prepared to respond with Crew 9 in the event of an emergency,” Stich said.
“We’ll need to choose one of these paths to meet the Crew 9 launch date, probably in mid-August,” he added.
SpaceX’s mission was originally scheduled to launch on August 18, with the Starliner expected to return by then, but the flight was postponed to September 24.
The Crew 9 mission is a scheduled flight carrying four astronauts to replace members of the Crew 8 team aboard the International Space Station.
NASA said Crew Dragon would typically carry two to four passengers at a time, but could carry additional passengers if needed.
NASA is actively working with SpaceX on contingency plans, but has not yet made a final decision on which shuttle the two astronauts will return on.
“We haven’t formally committed to going down this path, but we wanted to make sure we had all the flexibility,” Stich said.
Wilmore and Williams were scheduled to spend just eight days in space after launching aboard the Boeing Starliner on June 6, the spacecraft’s first crewed flight.
Once in space, the crew discovered a series of worrying helium leaks and thruster failures, leaving NASA and Boeing scrambling to find a solution.
If Boeing’s rival SpaceX were to take on the task of returning astronauts to Earth, it could be another embarrassing blow for the embattled aerospace giant.
