Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have had their missions extended yet again, this time until at least March, and possibly April 2025. Originally planned as an eight-day mission, Williams and Wilmore’s straightforward task was to take Boeing’s Starliner on its debut flight with crew, dock at ISS for a brief visit before returning home. That was not meant to be.
After arriving at ISS, technical failures, repeated delays have extended their stay, with their earliest return window now set for no earlier than March 2025. The latest reason given? NASA is extending Crew 9’s schedule while SpaceX completes and delivers a new Crew 10 capsule to Florida for launching aboard a Falcon 9 next spring. This will allow engineers more processing time for a new Dragon spacecraft. The vehicle is set to arrive at the Cape sometime in January.
“Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” said Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “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.”
Crew-9 and the full space station crew of Expedition 72 are focused on completing research aboard the orbiting outpost NASA says that the space station recently received two resupply flights in November and is well-stocked with everything the crew needs, including food, water, clothing, and oxygen. The resupply spacecraft also carried special items for the crew to celebrate the holidays aboard the orbital homestead in space.
Still, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams must be hoping that this is the last of the delays and that next spring they can see a successful end to one of the oddest spaceflights in history.
Photo: NASA
Starliner CFT Condensed Timeline
- Program Conceived: Starliner is revealed to the public in June 2010.
- Development: 2011 – 2019
- 2011 drop tests on test article
- 2012 parachute testing on test articles
- May, 2016: Boeing announces delays to reduce vehicle mass
- April 5, 2018: NASA announces first crewed flight delayed from 2018 to NET late 2019 or 2020.
- June 2018: propellant testing failure vents around two tons of toxic monomethylhydrazine propellant, resulting in a fireball.
- October 2018: first uncrewed Starliner flight delayed from 2018 to NET August 2019.
- May 2019: all major hot-fire testing is completed.
- November 4, 2019: Parachute failure during pad-abort testing
- December 20, 2019: First Orbital Flight Test. Software mismatches mission elapsed time with Atlas V causing payload (Starliner and its service module) to exhaust thruster propellant and mission terminated early.
- Post-OFT: Boeing admits it had not conducted integrated end-to-end sofware tests for the entire mission
- May 19, 2022: Second Orbital Flight Test launches.
- May 22, 2022: OFT-2 docks at ISS, a first for Starliner
- May 25, 2022: OFT-2 lands successfully after GPS and other minor glitches. Flight deemed a success
- 2022: Tape used to wrap Starliner wiring harness found to be potentially flammable
- 2022: Parachute issues force additional fixes and testing.
- Initial Launch Delays: Originally planned to launch in 2017, the Boeing Starliner Crewed Flight Test mission faced multiple delays and postponements due to development issues and technical problems, including software errors and valve malfunctions during uncrewed test flights in 2019 and 2021.
- Wilmore and Williams Assigned To Boeing Crewed Flight Test: June 16, 2022
- Launch Attempts in 2024:
- May 7, 2024: An oxygen valve issue on the Atlas V rocket caused a scrubbed launch attempt.
- June 1, 2024: A ground computer failure led to another scrubbed launch.
- June 5, 2024: Successful launch occurred after addressing helium leaks in the Starliner’s service module.
- In-Orbit Issues: Upon reaching the International Space Station (ISS), Starliner experienced thruster malfunctions, prompting NASA to extend the astronauts’ stay beyond the planned eight-day mission to ensure safety.
- Decision for Uncrewed Return: In August 2024, NASA determined it was too risky for Wilmore and Williams to return aboard Starliner due to unresolved thruster issues. The spacecraft safely returned to Earth uncrewed on September 7, 2024.
- Extended Stay on ISS: The astronauts’ return was rescheduled to coincide with SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission, initially planned for February 2025.
- Further Return Delays: As of December 2024, NASA announced additional delays, with the Crew-10 launch now targeted for no earlier than late March 2025, extending Wilmore and Williams’ mission to approximately nine months.
