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NASA is working on backup plans to return two astronauts who flew to the International Space Station on the new Boeing Starliner spacecraft, amid concerns over the vehicle’s flight readiness.
The trip was supposed to last just eight days — now it could go on as long as eight months, after NASA acknowledged serious problems with the capsule. This is its first crewed flight.
Among the options to bring Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams home, NASA is considering saving them seats on a SpaceX flight planned for Feb. 2025, agency officials said Wednesday.
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Starliner, which cost billions and faced numerous delays, is among the problems Boeing’s new CEO, Robert Ortberg, has inherited, The Wall Street Journal noted. Its issues have enabled SpaceX to take the lead in the industry, and have diluted Boeing’s credibility with NASA, its client since the Apollo moon landings.
Boeing recently revealed it incurred a $125 million loss related to Starliner when the company reported its quarterly earnings for the three months ending in June. The company maintains Starliner is safe and could still carry the astronauts home. If it completes its test flight successfully, then the company can fulfill a 2014 contract to launch several more crewed flights for NASA to the ISS before the orbiting lab is decommissioned in 2030. If not, the only other flight-ready capsule NASA has a contract with is SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.