After months of confusion over safety issues, Boeing’s new astronaut capsule will take off from the International Space Station on Friday without its crew.
Two NASA test pilots will remain on the space station, which will be their home until next year, while the Starliner capsule prepares to undocke and land in the New Mexico desert six hours later.
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were scheduled to return to Earth on the Starliner in June, a week after launch. However, their trip to the space station was marred by thruster failures and a helium leak.
Ultimately, NASA decided it was too risky to send Wilmore and Williams back on the Starliner. So the capsule will return with its empty seats and blue spacesuits, along with some old station equipment. SpaceX will bring the two back in late February, extending their original eight-day mission to more than eight months.
The first astronaut flight by Boeing marks the end of a quest beset by setbacks and delays. NASA entered into contracts with SpaceX and Boeing to provide orbital taxi services following the retirement of the space shuttle more than ten years ago. In 2019, Boeing conducted its first unmanned test flight, which had so many issues that it had to be rerun. More faults were discovered on the subsequent attempt in 2022, and the repair bill over $1 billion.
Later this month, SpaceX will conduct its crewed flight, marking the tenth NASA flight the company has conducted since 2020. With two seats set aside for Wilmore and Williams on the return stage, the Dragon capsule will only have two astronauts on board at the start of the mid-year campaign.
